Alec Baldwin killed Halyna Hutchins on the set of the B movie “Rust”.
He drew a single action army revolver from a shoulder holster, pointed it at Halyna, pulled back the hammer and pressed the trigger. The gun fired, killing Halyna and injuring the person behind her.
Alec is claiming that as an actor he is to stupid to understand that you always treat a gun as if it is loaded. That you don’t point it at anything you are not willing to kill/destroy. That you make sure of your target and what is beyond. That you don’t put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to pull the trigger.
He failed all four.
There are internet fablist that will claim that it wasn’t Alec’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was unloaded. That it was the responsibility of other people on set to make sure that the stupid actor never did anything dangerous with the gun.
It turns out that there were a lot of things going wrong on the set. The expectation is that there is no live ammunition on set. You shouldn’t trust this, but that is the expectation. The expectation is that you should be able to visibly verify that a firearm is loaded with inert cartridges or blanks.
The inert cartridges we use are either solid aluminum with a rubber nub where the primer should go, or they are actual shells with a black rubber nub where the primer should go AND an airsoft BB in the case. Shake the case and you can hear the rattle.
Somewhere along the line all of the safety measures failed and Alec was handling a firearm with live ammunition in it. And then he pointed that gun at Halyna and pulled the trigger.
He has since told multiple people that he never pulled the trigger. That the gun just went off. It must have been the hammer just falling.
All of which is highly unlikely to be true. In a rare case of the FBI doing what it is suppose to do, they examined the pistol in question and stated that it was working as designed and could not be fired unless the hammer was pulled back, the trigger was pressed and the hammer was free to fall.
Alec did all of those things, we know this because he shot and killed a woman.
The Hutchins family sued the Alec Baldwin. In multiple interviews Alec claimed that he had no responsibility because it was the production company… Except that Alec was one of the producers.
In the last week or so, the district attorney in the case has stated that he was going to be seeking criminal charges. Hopefully Alec is one of the ones to be charged.
Amazingly Alec and the Hutchins family reached a settlement just before charges are filed. If charges had been filed, and Alec lost in criminal court, the odds of him losing in civil court went way up.
As per normal, the terms of the settlement are undisclosed and unlikely to leak.
And the film will now go forward. With Halyna’s husband as an executive producer. With Alec Baldwin still starring in the movie.
Of course there is the question of whether they will be able to find anybody that is willing to be down range of Alec when he has a gun in his hands.
Google returns multiple hits on alec baldwin settlement
This gives We the People another defense tatic- the baldwin defense, like the hillary defense- “its not my fault, they told me the gun was safe”…. Lets see how well it works..
I have no doubt that Baldwin was trying to do everything he could to avoid charges, or if charged, taint the jury pool with his “it just went off, etc…” Place a seed of reasonable doubt.
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This settlement, in my (IANAL) opinion reduces the effectiveness of all that effort. In fact, if I was in NM following this incident, settling would make me thing guilty, not “he’s being a nice guy, and compensating the family” in some way.
Andrew Branca of Law of Self Defense LLC has a few videos about this. The advise that attorneys give is something like “Yes officer, I will cooperate fully. I’ve called my attorney and he is on his way.”
If it is a self defense situation you are suppose to say something but I won’t repeat it as IANAL.
Andrew’s statement is “Alec should have kept his mouth shut. He has now said enough that many of the defenses that could have been used are no longer possible.”
Alec is doing what elites always do, he is betting on his elite status to save his ass.
“go off” and “went off” are the calls of the imbecile birds.
“In a rare case of the FBI doing what it is suppose to do, they examined the pistol in question and stated that it was working as designed and could not be fired unless the hammer was pulled back, the trigger was pressed and the hammer was free to fall.”
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If I were in a cynical mood, I would speculate something to the effect that ol’ Alex must have slacked off his donations to various pols…
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Since I’m not, and highly respect the Feds In Grey, I will simply say, “Good job, fellows!”
And as most people thought would happen, Alec Baldwin will only face a charge of Manslaughter, without the gun enhancement charge. That’s a maximum of 18 months. Next he’ll probably get that reduced. — https://nypost.com/2023/02/20/alec-baldwin-sees-one-charge-dropped-in-fatal-rust-shooting/