I'm going to vent here: when the news broke about the tragic shooting of a film director on the set of "Rust," a movie starring that noted anti-gunner Alec Baldwin, the idiots in the press—99.9% of whom know absolutely nothing about firearms—kept saying the gun "misfired," an absurdity you would think even they could have grasped. A "misfire" is when the gun doesn't go off at all. On the set of that film, Baldwin was holding a replica of the Colt Model 1873 Peacemaker. It did go off, killing the director Helyna Hutchins and wounding a cameraman. Baldwin kept insisting it was a "misfire," and the Beautiful Talking Heads took that statement and ran with it. Thirty seconds with Google would have set them straight but they were too stupid and/or too lazy to bother doing that. Then, immediately after the incident a lot of quacking was heard about "prop guns" (the Beautiful Talking Heads seemed to think this was an especially dangerous category of firearms) plus a lot of inane jabber about "banning prop guns" was heard, even from people who should have known better.

The on-set armorer (whose primary responsibility was safety) has gone to trial; Baldwin has been indicted for involuntary manslaughter; but both of them bear responsibility. The armorer should not have allowed live ammunition within miles of the set. Baldwin, however much he hates firearms and firearm owners (though he uses guns in his movies) is culpable of careless gun handling at the very least. The armorer will go to jail, as she should; Baldwin won't, even though he should, because he's a Big Name Movie Star.

On the plus side, if he's convicted, involuntary manslaughter is a felony. No more guns using fixed ammunition for him: he'd have to stick with muzzle-loaders!