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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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It is the job of the production team to educate the relevant actors on proper gun-handling procedures and ensure the safety of the gun.

Of which, Baldwin, having worked on many movies where guns were used were well aware of.

A big issue in the Baldwin situation is that in the scene that was being shot, Baldwin was meant to be quickly drawing the gun. He was not meant to be firing it. If you look at the filming right before the incident happened, his finger is clearly inside the trigger guard and likely near or on the trigger itself. So the revolver should have never of been fired in the first place. It was his negligence by pulling the trigger. If he was in a scene wherein he was intended to "shoot" the gun, and that is when the negligent discharge happened I would have more empathy towards Baldwin's innocence. This is not the case, so the armorer failed by allowing live ammunition onto the set and Baldwin failed by negligently pulling the trigger of the revolver when the scene did not call for it. Both made critical errors, leading to the death of one and another injured, and both are justifiably going to be charged.

I mean, that's definitely an error, but realistically the armorer made the much bigger mistake. Most rules about gun safety, such as not pointing the gun at anyone, go out the window in movies and are replaced by "make sure the armorer knows what they're doing."

Honestly makes me wonder why they use real guns at all.

This is my question. What is the point? Build a replica without the ability to fire at all. You can with tech make a small fire at the end of the gun and then dub in the relevant sound effect later.

In a movie with a budget of 7 million about cowboys, the cost of special effects as against firing blanks et al may be cost prohibitive.