The Santa Fe DA says this about Alec Baldwin:
“Guns don’t just go off. So whatever needs to happen to manipulate the firearm, he did that, and it was in his hands.”
Now I still think that Alec Baldwin has enough money and celebrity to get out of it. We all know that there are two sets of laws in this country: One for rich lefties, and one for the rest of us. That doesn’t mean that the law wasn’t broken, just that he will use connections to get out of it.
Slate is always good for seeing the left’s faulty opinions, and this article is no exception. My first thought when I read the headline: “The Supreme Court May Elevate the Second Amendment Above the First” was something along the lines of, “Oh, what fresh idiocy is this?”
The article begins by pointing out that there are numerous restrictions on the time, manner, and place of free speech. Examples include rules that a ensure that expression does not interfere with their normal use. Rallies interfere with picnics and family gatherings. Parades and picketing block traffic and access to homes and businesses. The author then asks if firearms prevent the public from use and enjoyment of public spaces before going on to say:
Individuals may be injured and even killed when firearms are misused, improperly handled, or even when they are used properly. Even when a gunshot strikes the intended target, others may still be injured because the bullet may pass through the target and injure someone else or because the presence of the gun and gunfire cause a panic.
This is flawed, because the mere possession of firearms do nothing of the sort, any more than mere possession of a bible, political literature, or other materials that some find offensive interfere with the public’s use of a space. What the author is doing is conflating possession with use. No one is saying that people should be permitted to fire weapons in the middle of the street. The above argument is nothing more than the tired, old “yelling fire in a crowded theater” argument.
The author goes on to say:
the plaintiffs are not demanding the right to merely carry the firearm; they are demanding the right to use the firearm for self-defense. Thus, the fundamental question is not whether the presence of firearms threatens public safety but whether their use threatens public safety. The answer should be obvious, and the lessons of First Amendment jurisprudence should apply.
I actually agree. You see, using a firearm for self defense means that the person using that firearm is doing so to protect his own (or another’s) life from the unlawful use of force from a person illegally using that force. Just as a judge may prevent me from yelling out and disturbing his courtroom, no judge would argue that I cannot yell out to warn the occupants that the building is on fire, or that there is a man about to strike the judge with an axe from behind.
The author actually goes on to make a great point, and one which I agree with in principle, but I am betting not in the way that he is intending:
According to the court, “the peaceful enjoyment of freedoms which the Constitution guarantees contingent upon the uncontrolled will of an official—as by requiring a permit or license which may be granted or withheld in the discretion of such official—is unconstitutional.” The same should be true for firearms, and, arguably, this is where New York’s law fails. The requirement that applicants must show “proper cause” may be insufficiently clear and objective, allowing officials to exercise an unconstitutional amount of discretion.
If the court adopts this approach, it will follow a clearly marked path that will force New York to reconsider its standards for restricting guns in public, but allow it to still maintain some such standards. If the public forum doctrine is good enough for those seeking to exercise their First Amendment rights, it should be good enough for those who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights as well.
My agreement here is that they should be permitted to require permits for concealed carry, as long as those permits are issued under clear, and unbiased criteria. I would accept shall issue- that is, anyone who completes a reasonable safety course and is not a prohibited person shall be issued a permit.
I am betting that isn’t what the author is thinking.
That is what the 9th circuit said today when it ruled that California’s ban on standard capacity magazines was not an unconstitutional taking.
Accordingly, the ban on legal possession of large-capacity magazines reasonably supported California’s effort to reduce the devastating damage wrought by mass shootings
and as far as the ban being a violation of the takings clause:
the government acquires nothing by virtue of the limitation on the capacity of magazines.
Therefore, they didn’t take anything. The Australians were disarmed in 1996. By 2020, nearly all guns were confiscated. This was the result:
Two months later, and the military began taking Australians off to the camps:
The courts are not going to come to our rescue. There will soon be only two choices: Fight, or be taken away to the camps for our own safety.
The Rittenhouse trial has exposed a central belief of the antigun left. There is this article, from a licensed New York attorney who specializes in International Human Rights and Islamic studies. The central belief of her opinion?
Kyle Rittenhouse had viable alternatives to patrolling the streets of Kenosha with an AR-15-style rifle… He chose otherwise, and that choice should have had legal consequences.
Then there are several student organizations at Arizona State University, including: the Arizona State University Students for Socialism, Students for Justice in Palestine, Multicultural Solidarity Coalition, and MECHA de ASU. All of them are communist organizations, most are race based.
One of these groups- La MEChA, even has this in their constitution:
Chicano and Chicana students of Aztlan must take upon themselves the responsibilities to promote Chicanismo within the community, politicizing our Raza with an emphasis on indigenous consciousness to continue the struggle for the self-determination of the Chicano people for the purpose of liberating Aztlan.
This MEChA group has a chapter on many College Campuses in this country. For example, they posted on the University of Texas webpage in 2007 (since taken down):
In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal “gringo” invasion of our territories
I wrote about them in 2007, back when they were advocating for an armed rebellion. It appears as though they don’t mind guns, as long as the guns are in their hands, not the hands of their would-be victims.
The groups are demanding that Rittenhouse be expelled from Arizona State. In their statement, they had this to say:
Rittenhouse took the lives of innocent people with the intent to do so—by strapping an assault rifle to himself in a crowd of unarmed citizens. That is the textbook definition of intention.
Nevermind that the citizens he shot were armed with a length of chain, a skateboard being used as a club, a handgun, incendiaries, and other weapons. No, having a firearm for self defense is, to the commies, evidence that you intend to commit murder.
The Rittenhouse case is being used as an indictment of armed self defense as a concept. They hordes of violent Antifa and BLM warriors need unarmed victims for their tactics to work. If their intended victims are armed and begin to actively resist, their movement falls apart.
There is a reason why those “protests” have only been successful in Democrat run, gun restricted states. When your victims have the means of resistance, it’s a bit harder for them to become victims in the first place.
Remember what the ADA said in the Rittenhouse case:
Because ‘Everybody Takes a Beating Sometimes’
New Federal law being proposed. Let me explain:
The problem: There’s no requirement for a background check on ammunition sales. So you can be someone who just stole a gun, illegally got your gun from some kind of trafficking, or were in possession of it and you are intending a crime. You can walk into any store and buy the bullets and nobody is going to check. If we extend background checks to ammunition, we immediately save lives
Fred Guttenberg, father of Jaime Guttenberg
Fred Guttenberg is pushing for the proposed law, named Jaime’s law after the man’s daughter. Jaime was killed in the Parkland shooting in South Florida. Here is the thing: this law wouldn’t have done a single thing to prevent the shooting that killed his daughter. The killer in that particular case obtained his gun legally because authorities couldn’t be bothered to do their jobs.
If the law passes, it won’t fix a single one of the hypotheticals in the above quote. If a person steals a gun, buys one on the black market, or is intending to commit a crime, there is no way that such scenarios would result in failing a background check.
No, the real purpose of this law is to inconvenience shooters. It requires that ammunition can only be bought from licensed dealers. It also appears to require a permit to purchase ammunition at anywhere other than a shooting range where the ammunition will be fired on the premises. The law also states that there is no limit to the fee that can be charged for the background check.
Keep buying ammo, it may be needed very soon.
A teen is walking down the street, not doing anything. An older man is following him after using racial epithets to threaten him. The teen turns and confronts his attacker. There is a short struggle. A shot rings out and one of them falls dead. Remember when the left claimed that the teen being followed should be allowed to attack the one following him?
Given the fact that Zimmerman confronted Trayvon the discussion should really be about Trayvon’s right to stand his ground during Mr. Zimmerman’s unprovoked attack against him. Trayvon was the one being pursued. Trayvon was the one who presumably feared for his life when confronted by Zimmerman who had admitted in the 911 call that he was following the teen. It was Trayvon who had a right to stand his ground and defend himself. Why has the discussion of the right to defend oneself focused on this issue from the perspective of Mr. Zimmerman instead of the innocent teen?
The Huffington Post
Now reverse the roles. The left is now saying that the teen should have run faster.
Those on the left just don’t like self defense.
To those of you who defended Baldwin, here is a quote directly from the actor:
“I do know an ongoing effort to limit the use of firearms on a set is something I’m extremely interested in.”
Alec Baldwin
He killed someone through his own negligence, and now he is using that incident to work towards banning all firearms in Hollywood movies.
Do you think that antigun lefties would kill someone on purpose, if they thought that more gun control would result from the killing?
Before anyone gets all misty eyed about Alec Baldwin, read a few posts from the past:
After the South Florida shooting, he joined the #NoNRA movement:
NoRA: Alec Baldwin and Amy Schumer join new anti-NRA initiative
Or there is this spoof that he did after Parkland:
If Alec Baldwin wasn’t opposed to the NRA, he might have found out that the NRA offers firearms safety courses.
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:
Let’s start with the first question: Was this a real firearm, or a prop? Prop firearms generally fall into 3 categories:
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
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?
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.