When The Bullet Hits The Bone
By: Bill the Butcher
What is a Colt single action revolver?
I want you to notice something in the above video. First, a bit of a class on the weapon, a Colt .45 Peacemaker. What is a Colt single action revolver. Single action means that unlike modern automatic pistols, you must manually cock it. This requires pulling the hammer back for each shot. All the way back! This aligns the cylinder with the barrel, activates the release mechanism of the trigger, causes the hammer to fall on the firing pin which explodes the powder in the cartridge which sends the projectile merrily on its way. All of this things must happen in perfect order.
Four Clicks
There are four clicks that you will hear. The first is a safety. The trigger cannot activate the hammer. The second is to freely rotate the cylinder in order to load fresh ammo or eject spent cartridges. There is a little ramrod beneath the barrel to help push the used cartridges out, as they tend to swell up when fired. The third set the cylinder but is not a hammer position and should it slip it goes back to click two. There’s a little clip you can observe just below the cylinder that snaps in and holds it firm while progressing to the fourth click which is lined up the cylinder with the barrel, and enables the trigger to release the hammer, allowing it to strike the cartridge and cause it to fire, driving the projectile down and out of the barrel. If, and that’s a big if, the third click as flawed, worn down or damaged surely that would have been noticed by the target shooters. Are you telling me they would have put a flawed or damaged gun back in the movie property safe. There was a gun safe . . . right, right? And, of course there was the FBI check so it’s safe to assume that the gun was operating as was designed.
Baldwin maintains that he was pulling the hammer back without his finger on the trigger, it slipped, and the gun went off. The FBI supposedly checked this and said the gun was in good order. And besides that, during trial it will be very easy to demonstrate this to a jury. In fact I’m sure the prosecution will conduct quite a gun class for the jury. Plea bargain!
C. . . O. . . L. . . T
The four clicks are nicknamed C, O, L, and T. If you watch the above video you can quickly ascertain that the cylinder and barrel are not properly aligned until the hammer is at the “T” position. Which means the projectile could not travel down the barrel, but this is academic anyway because if the cylinder is not aligned with the barrel the percussion cap on the cartridge is not aligned with the firing pin which makes it virtually impossible to fire the cartridge at all! Bang or no bang. Even if the trigger/hammer mechanism was flawed, or damaged the misalignment would forbid firing. We can reasonably assume the gun could align and fire because, according to witnesses it had been used for plinging earlier with live ammunition!
They practice the scene
The human element is the problem here. Let’s imagine an untrained actor operating this weapon. Now let’s put said actor in a situation where he needs to produce said weapon in a scene of a movie. They don’t do these things only once, folks. They practice the scene. Camera angles, lighting, operation of the gun, and just plain familiarizing with the gun itself. You don’t think Alec Baldwin wasn’t clicking that gun as he practiced the cross draw required for the scene? And just pulling it from a western style holster. Even if he were a gun enthusiast the western style holster would be different from what he may have been used to.
The Weak Link in the Chain
Now let’s take protocol. In the perfect world the armorer would be in charge of guns on the set, and the safety of these guns would be their responsibility. When this person announced that the gun was “cold” that was the understanding that according to the on site “expert” the gun was incapable of firing any projectile. The very idea that the recipient of the weapon didn’t have the right to confirm this is stupidity. The defense being the gun was announced as safe by the armorer and that was that, and that nobody had tampered with it outside of the control of that person. But, consider this: The armorer hands the gun to the actor, who then inspects it in full view of the armorer to double check. Now this is contingent upon said actor knowing what they were looking at. There’s your weak link in the chain. Baldwin likes to click guns, click it at the ground six times.
Now let’s take the scene itself. According to witnesses the cinematographer was attempting to get an alignment on the gun for the scene. Supposedly to allow the camera to look right down the barrel. Baldwin was to draw the gun and position it in this configuration. Now, we are assuming he can do that, right? Aiming from the hip, single handed, cowboy style he’s gonna get it right take after take. Sure he is, and if you believe that I still have that bridge for sale.
Why Snap the Gun at All?
Now ask yourself, if it were a dry run why snap the gun at all? During the actual filming the lady could simply step to the side and allow Baldwin to fire the customary blank at the camera. The practice run was to draw and point. Also it is my understanding the loud “boom” of the western gunfire is added later.
Could it be that Mr. Baldwin had been snapping that gun two or three times, each click indexing the live round one step closer to alignment with the barrel. As far as his not pulling the trigger, we know the gun had to be fully cocked in order to fire and it had been recently used in target practice on the set using live ammunition that wasn’t even supposed to be there!
Did Alec Baldwin deliberately shoot the lady?
Did Alec Baldwin deliberately shoot the lady? No! He was as surprised as anyone else on the set when the gun went off. He expected the same clicks he’d been hearing two or three times before. Will he be found guilty? That’s for a jury to decide. The armorer was surely responsible, as was the man that handed Baldwin the gun, and Baldwin should have double checked the gun if he were knowledgeable of weapons. He was the producer. What happened to that responsibility? The fact is someone was accountable because the lady is dead from a gun that should have never fired in the first place
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