Divemedic

Safety and Guns

Watch this video. 28 seconds into the video, look closely at the right side of the frame.

How close was that guy to the line of fire from the shots taken at 19 seconds? This makes my heart beat faster just watching it.

If the guy who was down there had been shot, who would have been at fault?

  • The designer of the stage who designed a stage where the ENTIRE stage wasn’t visible to the RSO
  • The RSO who didn’t make sure the down range area was clear before calling “hot range”
  • The shooter for taking the shot without verifying what was behind his target
  • The guy who was downrange for being where he was
  • The bystanders who didn’t keep an eye out and speak up

My answer? All of the above. We as shooters are ALL collectively responsible when things like this happened. There is a lesson to be learned from every incident. If we are unwilling to look at it with an honest eye towards safety, things like this will happen more often.

Safety isn’t just the responsibility of the RSO. Nor the shooter. It is everyone’s responsibility.

Design the environment so the RSO can see the entire shooting area. As the RSO, make sure that you are aware of the environment. The shooter needs to follow the four rules. The bystanders should keep an eye out for each other to make sure that every one of those who go down range to paste targets come back.

I have supervised people in all sorts of environments. SCUBA Diving, firefighting, HAZMAT, all sorts of things. Safety incidents are rarely the result of one thing that went wrong. It is often the result of a list of minor things that each went wrong. Each of us is responsible for what happens.

Like many shooters, I have had an ND myself. Two, in fact. I was much younger, and not as experienced as now. The first happened when I was 20 years old. I was at the range and pulled the trigger on my S&W 4506. I pulled the trigger, and nothing happened. I pointed the gun at a 45 degree angle, sort of down range, and sort of in the air. I pulled the trigger again. I was surprised when it went bang the second time. Luckily, the weapon wasn’t pointed at anyone.

The second was entirely my fault. I was doing dry fire practice. After being done with that, I reloaded the pistol. For some reason, I forgot what I had done, dry fired again, and blew a hole in the front of my dresser. Again, at least I wasn’t pointing it at a person. A violation of Rules 1 and 2.

Both of those incidents were more than 30 years ago. I have never forgotten them.

By Divemedic, ago

Aesop

I want to make something clear with regards to my disagreement with Aesop’s opinion on the Rusty Baldwin shooting. The disagreement that I have with him is about his opinion on this topic. Yes, he and I have disagreed in the past. We have also agreed on topics in the past. That is the nature of human interaction.

I still believe that he and I agree on more topics than not. Don’t take our little discussion as anything other than a disagreement between colleagues.

I don’t have a problem with him or his blog. It’s the nature of human interaction- we don’t always agree. We also have a tendency to circle the wagons when we want to defend our own opinions, which MUST be the correct opinion, or we wouldn’t have it, would we?

By Divemedic, ago

Legal Opinions

Let’s burn another post on the Baldwin Rust shooting and get some legal opinions. We will start with a quote of New Mexico’s manslaughter law:

Involuntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to felony, or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner or without due caution and circumspection.

There was a death, and I think that we can all agree that SOMEONE didn’t show due caution and circumspection, or else a woman would not have been killed by a supposedly unloaded gun. In a case like this, one or more people could have contributed to the incident.

Erlinda Johnson, a practicing New Mexico criminal attorney and former state and federal prosecutor said that Baldwin could face possible criminal liability for involuntary manslaughter. “All the state needs to demonstrate is that he was engaged in a lawful, but dangerous act and did not act with due caution,” she said. 

She speculated that Baldwin may rely on the defense that someone handed him the gun, “but then, well it was incumbent upon him, since he was handling the gun, to make sure there were no rounds.”

Johnson continued: “Clearly someone didn’t do their due diligence. They should have been checking those guns to make sure there were no live rounds.”

So the key question is not one of law, but of fact. That is, did Baldwin, as the one holding, pointing, and shooting the gun, have a responsibility to check to ensure that the gun was not loaded before he pointed it at another human being and pulled the trigger? Or was it sufficient that he relied on someone else to check the weapon for him?

As we have demonstrated in the blogging world, opinions are split on that.

In the American legal system, the jury is the primary finder of fact. That is what a jury is for. Put the case in front of a jury and let them decide whether or not Baldwin was criminally negligent. The proper place to try this is not in the court of public opinion, or on various blogs. The place to try this is in court.

In either case, Baldwin and the movie’s production company will still face civil liability. There will still be a lawsuit. From another article:

“There’s no explanation where you have this happen on a set where there’s not civil negligence,” said attorney Jeff Harris

The only people who win in this case will be the attorneys. The biggest issue that I have here with all of this is that we all know that, as an ‘A’ list celebrity, Alec Baldwin will get special treatment and will not get nearly as many repercussions from this as one of us would.

That really burns my ass.

By Divemedic, ago

Pissing Off Liberals

These stickers are becoming quite popular in my area.

You can get 100 of them from Amazon for ten bucks. Then you stick them onto fuel pumps, right next to the display for the price.

By Divemedic, ago

This guy has the hat AND the shirt

Aesop has taken exception to those of us in the blogosphere who think that Baldwin should have inspected the firearm he was handed before he pointed it at a living person and pulled the trigger.

I dont normally call out other bloggers here, but since he referred to us as “Jasper and Billy Bob,” and I tried to post further comment on his blog but the comment was moderated away, here it comes.

People pointed out to him that, as a nurse, he checks medication vials that are handed to him before he gives them, rather than simply taking their word for it, so why shouldn’t an actor check to ensure a firearm isn’t loaded, even if the prop master says it’s not loaded. He replied that the medication is different, because ensuring it is correct is the nurses’ job, but actors are different because they aren’t trained.

He then goes on to claim that we aren’t qualified to judge him, because we don’t work in Hollywood on movie sets. He even brushed aside Branca’s opinion for reasons.

Aesop believes that since actors are busy, rich, and experts in making movies, that they are too busy and important to be bothered with mundane things like firearm safety, so should be permitted to pick up a firearm that a flunky tells them is uploaded, point it at someone, and pull the trigger. If someone is killed, well that’s just unfortunate, but at least the famous actor wasn’t inconvenienced with having to learn firearm safety.

So if he won’t listen to us, nor even to an actual attorney, maybe he will listen to the guy at this link, who DOES make movies. HE thinks that Baldwin messed up. An actual quote:

“Loaded or unloaded, a weapon never gets pointed at another human being,” said Bryan Carpenter, who heads Dark Thirty Film Services, “Even on a film or TV set,” he said “you never let the muzzle of a weapon cover something you don’t intend to destroy.”

The weapons consultant cited what he called “Colonel Jeff Cooper’s four fundamentals” of gun safety.

“All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are,” reads the No. 1 rule by Cooper, an influential gun safety expert who died in 2006.

The consultant also said that for safety purposes, live firearms used in TV and movie productions are typically aimed at a dummy point, not at equipment, cast or crew members, as was the case with the weapon handled by Baldwin.

Or you could take the word of a prop expert from this article, who said:

“There should be a number of people on-set checking,” said one prop assistant, who has worked on a big-budget Hollywood thriller. “If it were me, I would also have the actor check.”

Just because someone else is paid to do something doesn’t absolve you of responsibility. To use Aesop’s own example, if a pilot is told the plane was fully fueled by the maintenance crew, he is still responsible if the plane runs out of fuel mid flight.

No one is saying that the actor should be the only one to check the firearm, but he should be the last.

By Divemedic, ago

Prop guns

There is a lot of discussion of Alec Baldwin’s accidental killing of a person on his movie set. All of the facts indicate that Alec Baldwin was handling some kind of prop firearm, fired that weapon, and two people were injured, one fatally. Those facts don’t seem to be in dispute. There are a few things being debated:

  • Was this a REAL firearm, or a prop?
  • What was the projectile that struck the victims?
  • Who is responsible?

Let’s start with the first question: Was this a real firearm, or a prop? Prop firearms generally fall into 3 categories:

  • Blank firing guns are real firearms in every sense of the word, as defined by the government, and are regulated and handled accordingly. As the name implies, they fire blanks – bullet shell casing with no projectile. 
  • Replica guns are props made with metal, resin, plastic, and/or rubber. Depending on the needs of the production and the scene, they can be made to look identical to real guns. They do not fire, have no firing pin, and are not subject to the same strict regulation and safety requirements as blank guns. 
  • Non-guns are similar to replica guns but have the added feature of an electronically-triggered muzzle flash to simulate a weapon firing.

In this case, it is almost certain that the pistol in question was a blank firing gun. A replica gun would not fire anything, and would not look as if it were firing, no muzzle flash. A non-gun would likely not be capable of firing any sort of projectile.

So that brings us to question #2: What was the projectile that struck the victims?

If it was a real firearm, there are two possibilities: The cartridge was either a “blank” or a “live round.” A blank is the same as a live round, with two exceptions: The bullet is missing, and has been replaced with a cardboard or wax plug, so as to prevent the gunpowder from falling out.

While it is possible for a blank to injure or kill, this only happens at ten feet or less. Once past that range, the cardboard or wax cap has lost most of its speed, and the gases have dissipated to the point that they are no longer dangerous. (As long as we are talking about small arms. A 120mm cannon has a larger muzzle blast that is beyond this discussion)

There was the case of Brandon Lee, who was killed when a bullet was lodged in a pistol barrel from an earlier shooting session where the round was a ‘squib,’ and the gun was subsequently used as a movie prop. The gases from the blank forced the bullet out of the barrel, striking and killing Lee.

Absent a “Lee” style incident, it is likely that the projectile(s) that struck the victims was an actual bullet from a live round.

This brings us to the third question:

There are those who say that it was the responsibility of the prop department to properly check the gun to make sure it was safe for use as a prop, and that it isn’t Baldwin’s fault for the mistakes of the prop department.

I don’t buy this argument. Let me use my experience as a paramedic as an example. Let’s say that we are working on a patient, and I want to give a medication to a patient by injection. One of my coworkers will pull out the vial, use a syringe to draw the medication out of that vial, and hand me the syringe. Before I inject that medication, the person who drew it up for me shows me the vial, the syringe, and says “This is ten milligrams of morphine at 1 milligram per milliliter.” It is then my responsibility to look at the vial and the syringe to verify that was was done is correct. If I don’t, it is my fault if the wrong drug or dose was given.

In the same vein (no pun here), the prop department is there to examine the prop firearm and inspect it for safety. I won’t argue against that. However, the person who pulled the trigger has the ultimate and final responsibility to inspect that firearm to ensure that the barrel is unobstructed, the ammunition in it is only blanks, and that the firearm is pointed at a safe backdrop and isn’t pointed at another human before the trigger is pulled.

If the person using that ‘prop’ hasn’t done that, or doesn’t know HOW to do that, then they are negligent in the required knowledge to use that firearm (prop or not) and SHOULD be held liable, both civilly and criminally. After the incidents that have happened involving firearms on movie sets, it isn’t like Hollywood can say they aren’t aware of the risks.

Baldwin makes MILLIONS to do a movie. If he is going to make that kind of money, he needs to seek out the knowledge and training to do so safely. If he fails to do so, then what happened was 100% his fault.

EDITED TO ADD:

So it turns out that a live round was used. Baldwin couldn’t have bothered to do a simple inspection of the firearm to ensure that a live round with a bullet on the front wasn’t in the gun.

I think that Baldwin should be prosecuted, but we all know that celebrities are above the law.

I also think that prop guns should be of a caliber that actual, commercial ammunition isn’t compatible with the firearm, and any studio using a commercial firearm that hasn’t been thusly modified should be civilly and criminally liable when an accident happens. Think of a line of guns that fire a .42 caliber short. Since real ammo doesn’t exist in that caliber, there is no chance of a mistake.

END EDIT

By Divemedic, ago

Not for Children

They are grooming and propagandizing your kids. This is a little bit of a read, but stay with me, it’s important.

There is a book that was written for children, titled “Lawn Boy.” It was written by Jonathan Evison. This book is definitely NOT for children, but you wouldn’t know it by reading the description, which reads:

For Mike Muñoz, a young Chicano living in Washington State, life has been a whole lot of waiting for something to happen. Not too many years out of high school and still doing menial work—and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew—he knows that he’s got to be the one to shake things up if he’s ever going to change his life. But how?

In this funny, angry, touching, and ultimately deeply inspiring novel, bestselling author Jonathan Evison takes the reader into the heart and mind of a young man on a journey to discover himself, a search to find the secret to achieving the American dream of happiness and prosperity. That’s the birthright for all Americans, isn’t it? If so, then what is Mike Muñoz’s problem? Though he tries time and again to get his foot on the first rung of that ladder to success, he can’t seem to get a break. But then things start to change for Mike, and after a raucous, jarring, and challenging trip, he finds he can finally see the future and his place in it. And it’s looking really good.

Lawn Boy is an important, entertaining, and completely winning novel about social class distinctions, about overcoming cultural discrimination, and about standing up for oneself.

Sounds innocent, right? This is NOT an entirely accurate description of this book. The book is ACTUALLY about how the main character, Mike Munoz, a 22 year old half Mexican boy who mows lawns for a living. By the end of the book, he discovers how Capitalism is racist and homophobic, and this is why success and happiness are eluding him.

There are descriptive homosexual sex scenes in the book, “F” bombs are sprinkled throughout, and the entire American way of life is painted as evil. This book contains graphic sex scenes between children as young as nine years old, which falls under the umbrella of kiddie porn. Here is a quote from page 19:

Not that it really matters, in fourth grade at a church youth group meeting out in the bushes, I touched Doug Goebbels dick, and he touched mine. In fact, there was even some mouths involved.

Then on page 91, there is this passage:

What if I told you I touched another guy’s dick? What if I told you I sucked it? I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goebbels’ dick in my mouth. I was in fourth grade, it was no big deal. He sucked mine too. And you know what, it wasn’t terrible.

So why am I writing this post? Because this book is in the library of many schools. It is on the required reading list for some classes in middle and high schools in Texas, Florida, and Virginia (where parents aren’t allowed to have a say in what their kids are learning). If you want to read some scary stuff, read the comments to the Texas article, where adults try to justify this book by citing studies about elementary school aged children engaging in sex.

I have no problem with gay adults. I personally don’t care what an adult does with their genitals. However, kids need to be kept out of it.

I have said this before: There are activists in schools who are trying to fill your children’s heads with propaganda. They are grooming your kids to be sexual and economic slaves. I spent eight years as a public school teacher, I know. There are many good teachers who care about this country and the kids in their care. There are also hard left communist hacks, pedophiles, and slackers who are just there for a paycheck. Those teachers are the ones who are spotting kids that are malleable, and creating little communist fuck toys for themselves. Listen to this parent’s objections at a Virginia school board meeting:

As she reads aloud from the book, the school board shuts her down because “there are kids in the audience.” Well, that is kind of the point. If this book isn’t for children, then it shouldn’t be in the school library. She refuses to step down, so they shut off her microphone. I guess this makes her a Domestic Terrorist.

At this point, I cannot stress enough: Get your kids out of public school. Even in private school, pay close attention to what they are learning and studying. If you don’t, you might wake up one day to discover that there is a purple haired Marxist with a penchant for buggering little boys living in your house who just turned you in to the FBI for not being “woke” enough.

By Divemedic, ago

Gun Control Activist Kills with Negligent Discharge

Gun control activist Alec Baldwin has a negligent discharge on the set of the movie “Rust” and kills the director of photography. My question is: Why does a movie prop gun need to be capable of firing a projectile? Can’t they be made intrinsically safe? And if they cannot be made safe for whatever reason, then why are they not being forced to follow the four rules?

  1. Always treat every gun as if it were loaded. (even prop guns, if they can fire projectiles)
  2. Always point the muzzle in a safe direction. (not even at film crewmembers)
  3. Always keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
  4. Always be sure of your target and beyond.

If OSHA can be used to require that employees get a COVID vaccine under the guise of workplace safety, then why can’t the same agency ensure that no one is shot and killed on a movie set by mandating the four rules?

I remember Baldwin making fun of Vice President Dick Cheney’s accidental shooting of a hunting companion.
He also more recently commented on Twitter about a police officer-involved shooting where he tweeted, “I wonder how it must feel to wrongfully kill someone…”.

Baldwin tweeted on Sept. 22, 2017, about Huntington Beach police officer Eric Esparza being caught on video shooting dead Dillan Tabares, 27, who’d punched him and reached for his gun.

Well now he knows. Karma is a cast iron bitch.

It is homicide when someone is killed, and Alec Baldwin pulled the trigger. Therefore, even if Baldwin the shooting was accidental, charge him with negligent homicide and leave it to the jury to absolve him. Isn’t that how progressive justice works?

I don’t feel sorry for him at all. Maybe if he knew more about guns, this person wouldn’t be dead.

One thing is for sure. Alec Baldwin, the gun control activist, has killed more people with his guns than I have.

By Divemedic, ago

Gold

Here is a story about Venezuelans who are using gold in the wake of the Bolivar’s collapse. At today’s exchange rate of $1784 an ounce, a gram of gold is worth about $63.

Food for thought. Instead of gold flakes, it is a good idea to have silver for small purchases. Fractional gold is a good idea as well.

By Divemedic, ago