There's a weird right-wing push to punish Baldwin and I honestly don't know why. I know this because my dad is full MAGA nut and in between ramblings about Michelle Obama being a man and Jesus having returned already he talks about how Baldwin should go to jail.

From what I've read, it sounds like it was an accident. There was a settlement, apologies were made, and safety standards are being bolstered. Unless the "new evidence" is "Baldwin knew it was loaded" and there's rock solid proof, I don't know what is expected here.

[–] HumbleFlamingo@beehaw.org 55 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I honestly don’t know why

He did some skits on SNL as trump and trump got really butt-hurt about it.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 10 points 10 months ago

Of course his fans are so petty to be butthurt about a parody. That's like democrats going after Jason Sudeikus because he made fun of Biden

[–] nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 14 points 10 months ago

Him being a producer on the film does give him a bit more responsibility towards the process and protocols on set that led to such an incident, but I still don't think they have enough to convict here.

[–] averyminya@beehaw.org 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

My understanding was that the order of events was what the problem was. I thought it was -

There was a safety issue on set, Baldwin fired that person/team and brought in his own, which resulted in multiple other safety infractions - why the actor was actually down shot from a prop gun (usually it's staged to prevent that), why a weapon was loaded with live ammo. And with the first safety team being removed seems to be Baldwin decision.

Note: I'm not certain that this is how it went down, it's just my memory of the reporting.

[–] HumbleFlamingo@beehaw.org 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

why a weapon was loaded with live ammo

Why is there live ammo anywhere near set.

[–] synae@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 10 months ago

IIRC the armorer responsible for the weapons management was extremely negligent (facing charges of her own), and that is part of what the other crew raised issues with re:safety.

IMO if the producer (Baldwin) ignored those specific warnings, he should be held partly responsible. This gets confounded further since he also fired the gun.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 4 points 10 months ago

and maybe that's the new evidence they have. Not judging myself until I hear the new evidence personally, but so far I haven't heard anything completely damning twoards him

[–] usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago

There's a weird right-wing push to punish Baldwin and I honestly don't know why

He's seen as one of the "liberal Hollywood elite". Plus he's parodied their leaders and views in shows and skits

[–] Plume@beehaw.org 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You know, I don't believe anyone is too far gone. With very few exceptions. I was pretty right-wing at some time in my life and I came back from it, so I do believe in redemption. I do believe that we get to come back from this. But if you end up to a point where you will go on tirade about how Michelle Obama is actually a fucking man... you're too far gone, you're one of those exception.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 5 points 10 months ago

I cut my dad off years ago because of what he thinks.

I asked around a while ago about the Michelle Obama thing. It turns out it's pretty common in extreme right groups that they think this. The underlying issue is that they can't believe a woman, especially a black woman, can handle herself with such grace. So they just assign that she must be a man. Not consciously of course. They are just so fragile that it's all they can do.

[–] SkepticalButOpenMinded@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago

From what I’ve read, it didn’t sound completely like an accident to me. Working conditions were apparently so bad that the camera crew had walked off the set earlier that day. Non-union replacements were brought in, which is why safety standards were low and the set was chaotic.

This was a labor dispute, and Baldwin was careless with safety in order to avoid the costs of providing decent working conditions and pay.

[–] flumph@programming.dev 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you believe that prison (or any criminal sentence) is for rehabilitation and restoration instead of punishment, what's the hopeful outcome here?

I'm sure the guy already isn't going to want to work with real guns on any future movie set. Sending him to a rich white guy prison for 18 months won't change that. Nor will it change the laws or practices of what's happening on movie sets. And it won't bring any restitution to the victims' family unless they, in turn, sue.

Seems like the best outcome here would be a plea deal that involves pleading "no contest", barred from using real firearms, and committing to financial restitution for the family.

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

I mean, in his role of producer he was negligent in hiring someone without experience to handle the guns (in a western, even!).

I feel like producers should know there could be more than just a financial penalty when you cut corners so much somebody got killed.

Edit: looks like they're actually going after him as an actor, which IMHO is kind of ridiculous. If you expect blanks to be in the gun, and someone loads live ammo in there that's not even supposed to be on set, that's not your fault.

[–] Dukeofdummies@kbin.social 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, there is a large fixation on whether he did or did not pull the trigger and I genuinely feel like that's not the straw that breaks the camel's back, because ultimately he was told it was a clear gun.

What matters is:

Did he know that there were serious concerns about gun safety on set?
Did he use his star power/producer role to silence those concerns?
Did he retaliate against people who raised those concerns?

If he did any of those three things, then you have a rapidly strengthening case that he knowingly endangered the crew, and he should have known NOT to have aimed that gun at anybody. You made that gun unsafe and then the gun went off in your hands because you reaped what you sowed.

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 2 points 10 months ago

Totally agree

[–] Arcane_Trixster@lemm.ee 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There's truth to what you say, and I'm not personally a fan of any of the Baldwins, but most of the prosecution of this case has just seemed spiteful and nonsensical to me.

Like, there are cases to be made for Baldwin or the production company to be liable, but they seem to be framing everything as him just straight up murdering the woman, simply because he was holding the weapon. I'd say there are people behind the scenes that were much more responsible for the tragedy than the Actor that was in the scene and handed a hot weapon (including Baldwin, the producer not the actor).

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 5 points 10 months ago

Yeah, agreed that the prosecution is just trying to make a name for themselves by taking on a big Hollywood liberal. If they actually cared about avoiding this in the future, they'd take the producer angle, but obviously they don't want to set the precedent that a corporation or its officers face real consequences for cutting corners.

[–] flumph@programming.dev 4 points 10 months ago

Valid points! It looks like this was only her second film as armorer and the line producer scolded her for spending too much time focusing on armory. She warned that mistakes would happen.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2022-01-28/rust-emails-armorer-hannah-gutierrez-reed