re: #35 Dopamine Fish

AFAICT, on set, protocol told him that the gun was safe and that he was supposed to just pick it up and use it. Actors are insulated from the mechanics of how guns work so that actors who don’t regularly use or own guns can still be assured that they’re safe.

Not ranting at Dopamine Fish here. (Who, I suspect, already knows all of this.) Just using his very good post as a starting point and soapbox.

Obviously, I am not an actor. Nor am I familiar with the rules of firearms handling in that environment.

But the whole idea that the shooter was not responsible frosts my pumpkin.

Every bit of my firearms training states explicitly that I am fully responsible for knowing the state of and for the proper use of any firearm that I am handling. The “I did not know it was loaded” just does not cut it.

In my experience, you do not load a firearm until you are ready to use it. You do not chamber a round until you are ready to shoot. You only disengage the safety as the final step to shooting. You do not point the weapon at anything or anybody that you are not intending to put a hole into. And your finger does not go onto the trigger until you are fully intending to shoot.

As Stonekettle has said and I agree with “There are no accidental discharges, only negligent discharges”.

And that includes where the firearm has a mechanical misfunction that causes a discharge. (Worn sear or trigger, frozen firing pin, broken safety, etc)

In the civilian world, I have seen incidents of unsafe handling on shooting ranges by several friends. And I never went shooting with any of them again.