Comments by "Ash Roskell" (@ashroskell) on "Armorer explains what went wrong on 'Rust'" video.
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@JosephArata : Absolutely. Highly unprofessional behaviour. Baldwin is a producer and might find himself personally liable if it’s established that he knew what people were doing with these guns? I can understand the temptation of hobbyists, wanting to fire authentic classic weapons, but like you say, there’s this thing called, “professionalism,” which is why you don’t allow it.
But I have to laugh when so many people are suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect, writing, “I never fire a weapon without checking what’s in the gun personally. If I was in Baldwin’s place, I would have checked the gun myself.” To which I say, “NO YOU WOULDN’T!” Because if you did, you’ve just screwed the take and the armorer now has to take back the gun and reset it for safety and use in the scene! That’s literally her job!
It’s tragic and probably a whole series of things that went wrong, as the case so often is with tragedies. But it does come down to her in the end, as she was hired to ensure the guns were used safely and she signed a piece of paper that gave her soul responsibility. I don’t want anyone to go to jail over this unless they truly deserve to, like if she totally ignored safety, got drunk or just played with the weapons all day? But, she doesn’t come across like that?
Unless we’re looking at an episode Columbo where someone deliberately switched the bullet, hoping to murder someone, it’s all on her.
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Presumably, he was aiming at the camera, not the person? And he fired when the director told him to? How is that his fault? I promise you, the police won’t share your opinion. It was the armorer’s responsibility and her fault. And, before you go saying something really silly like, “I would have checked the weapon myself before firing it,” NO YOU WOULDN’T! Because no one would listen to you. That’s why they hire an, “expert.” If you meddled with the weapon, the armorer would have to take it back off you and reset it for the take again, because the armorer gets the last word, which is why they hire them. Think it through?
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@Brian-vn2pe : Umm . . . What, “gun safety rules,” son? 🤔 There’s the LAW and that’s it, Twinky. 🤦♂️ Why do you think they hire an Armorer? 🤔 Charity? 🤷♂️🤣 And you DO, “reset PROPS,” all day, every day, when you’re making a movie. You DON’T put everyone’s safety in the hands of actors, you silly sod! 🤣 The armorer is there for a REASON! They don’t source the guns, or hand them out. They check them and keep track of all the ammo, signing off on each gun before a take. If you had checked the gun what would you have found? A bunch of cartridges! And? You say, “Buhhht there’s cartridges in this,” and they lol and tell you, “Yeah, blanks!” How TF are you supposed to know the difference? Who would trust you if you said you did? They would go with the, “expert,” they HIRED to do that for you. Every time I run into a trump troll my belief in their ability to think their way out of a wet paper bag goes down. 🤣
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@submetropolis : It’s called the Dunning Kruger effect, right? These idiots think it sounds macho to say, “I would have checked the gun myself,” when the only answer to that is, “No you wouldn’t.” Doesn’t matter if you’re a weapons expert. You’re not the expert they hired to look after the props on set, so your meddling with it only means she’s got to take it back and reset it for the take. Baldwin might be in trouble as a producer, financially, for the cost cutting measures that lead to safety problems. He can’t pretend he didn’t know about the walk outs, etc? But, for the bullet leaving that gun and stopping in the wrong place, he’s never going to be arrested, let alone found guilty of anything. I think it’s just sour grapes from all the trump trolls who are still butt harmed over Baldwin’s hilarious trump impressions. 😁
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@colemcleod941 : A comprehensive and clear explanation. You’d make a pretty good expert witness yourself. For whatever profession you pursue that is. And, you can never say never. The expert testimony of any profession can be (and frequently is) vital to a trial.
What you’re trying to make clear is that the expert witness is there for the jury’s edification, to explain in detail what specific terms and definitions apply, how they bare on the case in hand, and any relevant details that the jury needs to have a working knowledge of, in order that they can fairly judge the case before them. Not only are they not witnesses to the events being disputed, but they are necessarily detached and (despite being hired by either defence or prosecution) are meant to give an unbiased testimony, from the perspective of an expert in the field who is specifically NOT influenced by the events of the case, and has nothing to gain or lose by the trials outcome.
And, for that reason, this expert that we just heard, would be an excellent choice for this case. Particularly at an inquest, where the coroner might well hire such an expert in order to help determine whether further investigation or prosecutions are warranted.
It does make me wonder, however? Do you think some people hope to get the gig by appearing on TV? Does that happen very often? An inquest would want to hear from an expert witness and this case would require more than one, presumably? Because there’s the issue of the contracts that people signed, whether they were being honoured (by both sides) and what the legal ramifications of her specific contracts were? There’s also the issue of how common such, “doubling up,” practices are and the, “reasonable expectation,” that she could fulfil both roles? I mean, clearly, she didn’t, whether she could have or not. But a witness who can testify as to what is routine regarding contracts and what’s not? The coroner would need more background for that too?
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@Brian-vn2pe : Wrong, son. It’s not a gun range, it’s a film set. You don’t take an actor’s word for it, you trust the, “expert,” hired for the job. Stop pretending you know what you’re talking about. You just, “wish,” Alec Baldwin would go to jail, but if you’re saying, “I would have checked the weapon myself,” all I can tell you is, “No you wouldn’t.” That’s what the Armorer is for, silly. If you meddled with the prop, they would have to stop filming and have the Armorer reset the gun, to ensure it’s safe (on a well run set) and you would have screwed up the whole take. Dunning Kruger Effect strikes again. Why do you think they hired an Armorer, silly? How would an actor know the difference between a real or fake bullet without training? Not even a gun expert is expected to know that, son. You’re just jealous of Alec Baldwin’s popularity, and you hate him because he’s ruined your favourite show, SNL, for you by doing those Hillaryous trump impressions. 😋
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@Brian-vn2pe : Says the guy with no life except what his shell company, “employers,” grant him for being a trump troll. It all went horribly wrong for you long before you’d even heard of Donald Judas Trump, and we can only hope they pay you to spend your entire life trawling the internet, trying to get negative attention from everyone you encounter by being deliberately wrong about everything? The alternative is too horrifying to contemplate! That you actually do this out of, “choice,” and for free? As the graffiti on the washroom walls so strongly suggests next to your phone number and an illustration scrawled in crayon and saliva. I thought you did all that as an act? But then, we all thought that about Donny’s dumbary too, until we discovered that he really was clinically thick, so . . . You wouldn’t be the first. I would genuinely pity you, if you weren’t a racist. But, while we’re talking, perhaps you could come clean and just explain to me one thing, son? I’m genuinely curious and (who knows?) you might even be able to persuade me? What is the appeal of racism? Is it just fear? Have you fallen for the, “replacement theory,” gibberings of focks? Or is there an, (and I hesitate to squander the term) “intellectual,” reason for it?
BTW, if you practice with Speech To Text technology, you too could be rattling off lengthy prose like mine with barely any effort. Give it some thought? Oh, but, “you people,” don’t do, “thought,” do you?
Anyhoo, cry about it as much as you like, coz’ Baldwin ain’t going to jail, and you won’t be able to refute that, just as you can’t refute all the crap you made up about trump that got blown out of the water. So, what you’re doing here, kid, is getting all emotional for the entertainment of people like me.
I already know what your reply will be, but at least try to be original and maybe, “entertaining,” like me? 🤷♂️
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@tupacamaruiv5804 : How would he do that, exactly? When actors start gain saying the armorer, who does the director believe? How does an actor know what a fake looks like? Even if they’re trained to Keanu Reeves levels? You see WHY they employ an, “armorer,” at all? What if the actor insists it’s a cold gun when the armorer says it’s hot? Who do you believe? Or vice versa? You all think you sound so, “grown up,” by saying you would take personal responsibility for the gun in your hand, when you’re just showing your abject ignorance. The WHOLE POINT of hiring an Armorer is so that it comes down to ONE PERSON, who is an EXPERT and who has the final say, so there’s no confusion. It doesn’t matter if you’re Audie Murphy and an expert in all firearms, you’re NOT the expert on set. Most gun experts have never seen prop ammo before and wouldn’t know what the differences are. The only people saying they would check for themselves, are the same people who fall prey to the Dunning Kruger Effect on a regular basis, thinking they know better than experts, based on the very little knowledge they have about the movie industry and especially HOW and WHY it works the way it does. Just think it through? 🤷♂️🤦♂️
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@superbmediacontentcreator : True enough. They will find not one single error, but a chain of them in this case. And it won’t all be buck passing, but will likely come down to two factors. Cutting corners to save costs, about which there were already safety concerns raised and conflicts among the professionals and the producers; and failure of supervision, allowing people to use live ammo at all (probably as hobbyists?) when the guns were not being used on set.
When I hear people saying it was the actor’s responsibility to check his own gun I just want to laugh. Why hire an, “expert,” at all, if the actor can decide at the last second and we’re all going to trust his or her word over that of the professional we hired? The insurance company would ask the same question in court. But a lot of, “gun experts,” don’t seem to be able to make the distinction between knowing about their firearms (and what is good practice with guns generally) and knowing about firearms on the set of a movie. Nor have they thought it through?
So what if the actor says, “But there’s a bullet in the chamber,” and has misgivings? The armorer says, “Yes, we know. It’s a blank.” Or, “It’s a dummy.” We don’t expect actors to know the difference. Even if they’re experts in firearms themselves, that doesn’t make them experts in fake bullets, blanks or dummies. That’s WHY you have an, “expert,” who takes soul responsibility in the first place.
To those saying, “Baldwin should have checked the weapon himself,” I say, “And then what?” He would have found something in the chamber, as expected. Was he meant to remove each bullet and check them? Would we be expected to take his word over the armorers? Why did we hire the armorer then? He most likely would have said, “I have no clue what the difference between a live bullet and a Hollywood fake looks like. But that’s why we hired an armorer.”
The Dunning Kruger Effect is running rampant in this story. A lot of self professed gun experts (some of whom may well be, but are more likely to be childish people who think they sound macho by professing to know all about gun safety) seem to think that knowing about weapon safety is the same thing as knowing about Hollywood movie magic, special effects and the art of film making. To those who say, “I would have checked the gun myself,” I say, “NO YOU WOULDN’T!” That’s what the armorer does. And no one would listen to the actor, regardless of what he thought he found in his gun. You trust the, “expert,” which is why you pay them! 🤷♂️
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@superbmediacontentcreator : That’s a very weird thing for your doctor to have done? Presumably it was to do with your insurance? But it does raise the issue of what’s in the fine print when we trust experts and what s/he was permitted to do? On the Rust set, the bottom line will be what it says in the armorer’s contract, which will be that she had soul responsibility for what was in that gun. She was literally there to ensure the safety of everyone using those props on set, so I can’t see how she can be cleared of that? The secondary, but equally important issue, will be to understand that, “sequence of unfortunate events,” that lead to this disaster, so as to allocate liability and (we can only hope?) learn from the experience for the sake of future movie makers and artists. But even when the whole thing is understood, I still can’t see any link in that chain that absolves the armorer herself? At some point, she failed in her responsibility.
But, unless this is some episode of Columbo, and we’re looking for a murderer who pulled a bullet switch with some sort of deliberate, “intent,” what we will find is that it was a sequence of events that lead to a tragedy which has altered the lives of all concerned. I certainly hope nobody needs to be jailed for this? It seems to me quite tragic enough without darkening matters over issues of, “punishment?”
I get the impression that there are a lot of trump fans in the comment section, who dislike Baldwin for his famous impressions of trump on SNL, and they’re expressing their hopes over their judgement? I think they like the idea of Baldwin being held responsible personally, but that’s just their emotions talking.
If an actor meddles with the weapon s/he’s using on a set, A) Everyone will take the armorer’s word over that of the actor, because that’s WHY they hired her. And, B) The armorer would then have to take the weapon back and reset it, ready for use in the scene. It is necessarily the armorer’s job to have the last word on the weapon, meaning the actor does NOTHING other than follow his or her directions, in order to keep everybody safe on the set. They’re NOT at a gun club and the paperwork makes it abundantly clear that it’s the armorer’s job to decide whether the gun is, “hot,” or, “cold,” as they say it on the set apparently. So all that, “I would have checked myself,” poppycock is pure Dunning Kruger stuff.
Nice to speak to someone sensible about it though. Sorry for waffling. I do that sometimes. Especially when I see the image of one of my favourite actresses in the thumbnail. That is Kate Blanchett, isn’t it?
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@flclub54 : As a producer Baldwin might well take some heat for this. But to all those saying, “I would have checked the gun myself,” I say, “NO YOU WOULDN’T!” Those people have a touch of the Dunning Kruger Effect, where they think that any expertise they have in gun use translates into safety on a Hollywood set. The expert is there to have the last word and it’s the one place in the world where you NEVER give responsibility to the person discharging the weapon. They are NOT, “experts,” and even a weapons expert is not trained in telling fakes from the real thing. It’s a specialist knowledge.
People would have checked their own gun and then done what? “Oh, but there’s bullets in the chambers.” To which everyone rolls their eyes and says, “Yeah we know. They’re blanks!” I mean, how TF is an actor supposed to know the difference? What’s the point of hiring an armorer? And do these people even realise that a Hollywood armorer is NOT an, “Armorer,” in the sense they’re thinking of the word? No one puts their safety into the hands of any Tom, Dick or Harry with a SAG card, FFS!? The weapons expert gets the last word, and if the actor messes with the gun in the scene, they have to give it back to the armorer to start over making it safe again!
People always think they’re, “experts,” in their armchairs, but in this case, the only proof I’ll need to show I’m right is that I can PROMISE right now that Baldwin will NOT be charged with anything to do with his pulling the trigger on that gun. As a producer, he may well be held as one of the people liable for cutting corners (depending on whether he can get away with the, “plausible deniability,” act he’s pulling right now?) but not for the actual bullet being in the weapon. That’s on the armorer alone. It literally says so in her contract, and it’s literally the REASON they hire them in the first place. 🤷♂️
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