Is Alec Baldwin guilty of involuntary manslaughter?

[maquiscat]

You can easily tell if there is a bullet in front of the casing or a was of paper. If you have any doubt when checking them, the prudent course of action is to fire a test round at a benign target.

I know for a fact, since I own it, that my .22 rifle clip/magazine/whatever the proper name is, holds 8 rounds. When I load it, I can only clearly see the top two rounds loaded, which means that I cannot tell, without emptying it again, what is below those two; blanks or bullets. So if the last round in the clip, the bottom most one is a live round and the rest are blanks, how am I supposed to know that the last one is live, short of unloading the clip? Yes I know that there are clips/magazines/whatever, where you can see the tips of every round loaded. But that doesn't mean that what is used on set, for any given situation.

As for revolvers, there are ones like this one:

where the opening to see the tip of the round is covered. Other revolvers of course:

have the opening clear so the tip can be seen. Assuming the round is long enough, rotate the cylinder and you can see whether it's a bullet or blank.

The question then becomes, whether the weapon in question has the ability to be checked without a full unload to know whether the rounds are bullets or blanks.

 

[trouble13]

I know for a fact, since I own it, that my .22 rifle clip/magazine/whatever the proper name is, holds 8 rounds. When I load it, I can only clearly see the top two rounds loaded, which means that I cannot tell, without emptying it again, what is below those two; blanks or bullets. So if the last round in the clip, the bottom most one is a live round and the rest are blanks, how am I supposed to know that the last one is live, short of unloading the clip? Yes I know that there are clips/magazines/whatever, where you can see the tips of every round loaded. But that doesn't mean that what is used on set, for any given situation.

As for revolvers, there are ones like this one:
View attachment 67434040
where the opening to see the tip of the round is covered. Other revolvers of course:
View attachment 67434041
have the opening clear so the tip can be seen. Assuming the round is long enough, rotate the cylinder and you can see whether it's a bullet or blank.

The question then becomes, whether the weapon in question has the ability to be checked without a full unload to know whether the rounds are bullets or blanks.

Those are all fair points but there is still the problem of if he did not watch the gun being loaded that it is his responsibility to check that the weapon is safe to fire at someone. He failed to do that.

 

[Atomic Kid]

You can easily tell if there is a bullet in front of the casing or a was of paper. If you have any doubt when checking them, the prudent course of action is to fire a test round at a benign target.

That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve seen on here. Fire a test round. Really?

 

[EMNofSeattle]

Duties and what constitute "reasonable care" change given the circumstances, which are different in this case, where you have an actor and a designated person who is supposed to be caring for the prop gun. This is not the same as a stranger or a friend just handing you a gun.

Yea, it is functionally the same thing.

Also, it is not "reasonable care" -- it's "recklessness." That means it's not mere negligence that is the issue. Baldwin must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was reckless, which means he proceeded literally so unreasonably that it shows he was not giving a damn if there was a risk of death or great bodily harm.

He pointed a gun at someone and pulled the trigger. Guilty

Right, that's what I'm saying. And, Baldwin wasn't acting equivalently to drunk driving. Drunk driving is reckless because everyone knows that driving while drunk is (a) illegal, and (b) creates a very high increase in risk of death or great bodily harm such that a person who drives drunk "literally doesn't care" that he is creating that serious risk. The difference with Baldwin is that he is (a) not doing something illegal, and (b) did not create the risk nor did he have any knowledge that what was happening was creating a serious risk of harm - he had the opposite expectation and knowledge. So, he is moreso at the level of simple negligence, if even that.

Pointing a gun and someone and pulling the trigger is purposefully disregarding a risk of death or grave bodily harm especially since by his own admission he had no idea whether or not it was loaded and relied on mere verbal assurance from someone else it wasn’t. “My friend told me it was unloaded”

Maybe because his recollection of the incident is that the gun "went off" and he doesn't recall pulling the trigger. He never denied it was a "real gun."

So he’s ****ed, he knew he was pointing a real gun. So his behavior was reckless

The fact of it being a real gun doesn't mean what Baldwin did was "reckless."

Yes it does

By your own examples, you show why what he was doing was NOT reckless, even if it was negligent. Refer to your example of recklessness - drunk driving - he was not doing something equivalent to drunk driving (illegal) and he did not know what a drunk driver knows (that his wrongful conduct is causing a great risk of death).

He could still have thought it was a prop gun,

No he didn’t.

and that it "somehow went off" causing him a that time to realize it was a real gun. But I haven't heard he thought it was a toy or a non-functioning prop at all. My understanding, and my analysis, is based on him knowing it is a real gun.

Which means he committed manslaughter. This isn’t difficult. When you are handed a gun you can’t just go recklessly shoot people and your job as an actor isn’t a defense

 

[trouble13]

That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve seen on here. Fire a test round. Really?

It's preferrable to killing someone