It's not only that, but they are on a movie set with a prop handed to them. Those of us who have actually shot firearms would be more cautious than some actor, but since it's only pretend, I don't know what my frame of mind would be. I can tell you that if there were people on set screwing around with prop guns and live ammo, I'd walk off the job. My life is not worth a paycheck. Nor would I want to witness what happened there.
Years ago, I worked in retail firearms & instruction. The same thing happened - without tragic results. In the retail store, we had dummy rounds used to instruct customers & students on loading/unloading/checking both single action, double action revolvers and autos. I noticed the dummy rounds were kept loosely in the same drawer as live rounds. I suggested to the idiot manager that was a bad idea & he responded, "Oh, don't be so paranoid." While I was out on my lunch break, a salesman was showing a customer the procedure & he demonstrated that a dummy round wouldn't fire by pulling the trigger (luckily pointed in a safe direction). The gun fired. The .380 bullet destroyed the stock on a fancy $4,000.00 rifle & a display case.
If the charges were dropped, they can be refiled. If he had gone to trial and been found Not Guilty, then Double Jeopardy would apply even if they discovered evidence that he had deliberately intended to kill the woman.
I'm an NRA Instructor, although I've never taught a class. You know how it works: you take the classes to be certified as an Instructor, and then you take classes in whatever subjects you want to teach. (Just getting my Instructor Certificate was kind of a bucket list thing for me.) I've also been very active in a number of gun rights groups. In all these years, I have encountered only a couple of people like that manager. That's probably because there are so many responsible folks around to have the conversation that you tried to have with him, so that eventually they get set straight. Being around all the people in The Community for all these years has elevated my opinion of the average man and woman on the street significantly. The experience also made it a whole lot easier to spot those I want to keep my distance from. We can both imagine the childishness and arrogance that were on that movie set.
No they can't. The judge dismissed the case with prejudice, which means the gov't can't try him again for this...in any court.
I didn't realize he had dismissed with prejudice. I guess the judge was in the pocket of the defense.