Alec Baldwin and the Handling of Guns

 After the Halyna shooting, Alec Baldwin retreated to a town in Vermont.   New details from the investigation are emerging, and all in all, there will be plenty of blame to go around.

To sum it all up, a movie called RUST was being filmed.  Alec Baldwin was the star, and Halyna Hutchins was the woman behind the camera.  Mr. Baldwin was handed a gun that was supposed to be either unloaded or have blanks.  Having aimed it at the camerawoman, Baldwin pulled the trigger and “bang,” Hutchins was shot dead with a real bullet, from a real Colt 45.

Tragedy ensued, and a lot of gross negligence was uncovered.  The gun was supposed to be a prop and the bullets were suppose to be blanks.  Live ammo was not permitted the grounds, along with real guns, and nobody knew where the responsibilities lay.

It was all one big mix-up.

Who is to blame?

I hate to admit it, but Baldwin himself bears much of the blame, though not all, because of his own stupidity.  His stupidity lies in the way he handle the gun.

Yes, I’m going to say it right out, and yes, the truth hurts.

According to one attorney, checking the gun was not the assistant director’s responsibility.  Oh, yes it was!

I will cover both of these, but first, I am fully aware that this is the worst moment in Alec Baldwin’s life.  He is a world famous movie actor who accidentally shot and killed somebody, and as a result, he bears a great remorse and a very bad scar, that will stick with him for the rest of his life.

As of this writing, Baldwin is in seclusion with his wife and family, trying to sort things out in dealing with this tragedy.  No doubt, he feels very remorseful, and is probably thinking in his mind, how he could have handled the gun differently, so as not to shoot Ms. Hutchins.  A “what might have been” that will never materialize.

Baldwin knows he will have to go back and answer for his mistakes, as does the entire crew on the set.  

My heart does go out to him.  This could have happened to anyone.

Could it?  

I know that the gun has passed between hands before it reached Baldwin, but the actor was still irresponsible, careless, negligent, and foolish.  I all boils down to how one should handle a gun.

I have been taught at a very young age never to point a gun at anyone.  In the military, they extend that statement to “unless you intend to shoot that person.” 

It sank in right away.  In grade seven, a teacher that if you want to know whether a gun is loaded, you check it, meaning the compartment.  You don’t pull the trigger.

That also sank in.  Whenever someone showed me a gun and put it in my hand, I always checked the compartment or cylinder, if it’s a revolver.  In the case of a rifle, I would release the catch to see if it was unloaded, even if the owner knew it wasn’t.  I NEVER pulled the trigger.  EVER.

I also made sure the gun was pointed away from anyone before handling it.

That is the way anyone should handle guns.

The chief cause of gun deaths in the U.S. is not by murder, but by carelessness.  That is, pulling the trigger and the bullet entering into someone unfortunate enough to be in the way.  The victim is killed, and the person responsible cries out in panic, “I didn’t know the gun was loaded.”

This is an everyday occurrence, and nobody learns from this; and so it was with Alec Baldwin.

Yes, Alec Baldwin does get the blame because he should have checked the gun before aiming it at Ms. Hutchins.  First of all, he shouldn’t have pointed it at Ms. Hutchins, period.  Second, he shouldn’t have fired it at all, even if it wasn’t pointed at anything.

If Baldwin had checked the gun, he would have found the bullets, taken them out of the gun, and tragedy would have been averted.

“Well,” one can say, “it was passed from person to person, and Baldwin assumed that the gun was safe.”  

It doesn’t matter.  He should have checked it anyway.  

Do you know what happens when you “assume?”  You make an ASS out of U and ME!  

He sure did, with horrific results.

The responsibility also lies with those in line passing the gun to Mr. Baldwin.  The attorney for the assistance is wrong.  It was his responsibility to check the gun.  It’s everyone’s responsibility who passes the gun to check it.

First, somebody had to know that the gun and the bullets were real.

What about the people in line who passed the gun to Baldwin?

If the very first person in line should have checked the revolver, he or she would have found the bullets.  What should have occurred then was to turn the bullets over to an authority and simply passed the gun, with the cylinder of the revolver open, all the way down to Baldwin, where he can keep it for a prop, safe and unloaded, and NOT point it at Ms. Hutchins, even if it was unloaded.

Hindsight is 20/20.

The investigation continues.  There was live ammo not authorized to be on the set, people were in positions of authority they had no business being in, having responsibilities they did not know how to handle, and a young woman, a wife and mother, was killed senselessly on the set.

This is human stupidity at its worst, and it is an everyday occurrence.

When will we ever learn?