Alec Baldwin kills crew member on set with "prop gun"

[Inkwell 41]

Baldwin didn't pull the trigger..... yeah, and the red SUV in Waukesha drove itself through the crowd.

[Kanye Wyoming]

Maybe he didn’t pull it. Maybe he had it pinned and was thumbing the hammer? He knows as much about guns as I do how to launch a space shuttle.

Surprised to see this on CNN. Pretty good run-through, with what you surmise offered as a good possibility.

https://twitter.com/@twitter/status/1466752479580893184?s=21

[peterb]

I think self-deception/dissociation/denial is a type of coping/survival mechanism people employ to insulate themselves from experiencing a certain level of trauma, in this case blowing someones brains out negligently. You say it enough times to yourself over and over and it becomes "your reality".

Yup. We saw a lot of “My finger never enters the trigger guard” that was only disproven with video during the SERPA holster arguments a few years ago. You can sincerely believe that you’re not doing something that you are.

As the CNN video shows, I can believe that his finger was resting on the trigger when he cocked the hammer. If so, and he tightened his grip to keep the gun from rolling as he pulled the hammer back, he could easily add enough pressure so that the hammer would drop when he released it. So he pulled the trigger, but it might be true that he never consciously or deliberately pulled the trigger.

[YVK]

If you did that with a friend and killed them but you were not on a movie set would you also not be charged?

I would've been charged because being not on a movie set placed 100% responsibility for making sure the gun was unloaded on me. The discussion would not have gone past that point. In this case it did move past that point because it was a primary, and pretty much only, responsibility of somebody else. Unless prosecution can prove that other actors in 700/year movie productions chamber check their guns themselves.
Baldwin's potential culpability was at pointing a gun in an unsafe direction and pulling the trigger. This narrative he presented yesterday implies he was told to point where he pointed, he was told to cock it, and he never pulled the trigger.
So, again, the question is if his story checks out, will he be charged criminally?

[RoyGBiv]

Surprised to see this on CNN. Pretty good run-through, with what you surmise offered as a good possibility.

https://twitter.com/@twitter/status/1466752479580893184?s=21

Sitting here with my mouth open. Hard to believe such a credible gun Q&A came from CNN.

[peterb]

“I cock the gun. I go, 'Can you see that? Can you see that? Can you see that?'" he added. "And then I let go of the hammer of the gun, and the gun goes off."

———-
That is what happens when there’s pressure on the trigger…..

If he truly didn’t understand how single-action revolvers work, I can understand his confusion.

It’ll be interesting to see what the trigger pull is on that revolver.

[GearFondler]

All this trigger talk is interesting but completely ignores the reality that it wouldn't matter a damn if there wasn't live ammunition in the gun. It seems as if the scene required the gun to be pointed at the camera and director so it damn sure needed to be empty or loaded with blanks regardless of the weapon manipulations involved.

[Caballoflaco]

I’m sure most of us here have seen people handling firearms who had no clue their finger was on the trigger. This is extremely common with beginners and older shooters who have been doing it wrong for 30 or 40 years. Finger on the trigger while reloading was pribqbly tied with 180 violations for DQ’s back when I shot uspsa, and those were “gun guys”.

While I don’t like him I can believe that he didn’t realize his finger was on the trigger

[peterb]

All this trigger talk is interesting but completely ignores the reality that it wouldn't matter a damn if there wasn't live ammunition in the gun. It seems as if the scene required the gun to be pointed at the camera and director so it damn sure needed to be empty or loaded with blanks regardless of the weapon manipulations involved.

True. He could have dropped the hammer on dummy rounds all day with no injuries.

Finding out how blank, dummy, and live rounds were separated and handled is a critical part of the investigation.

[Rmiked]

I have been following the Alec Baldwin mishap and feel he should have checked the pistol to confirm it’s not loaded especially if the scene involved him pointing it at a person. He described the actions before the discharge as the woman (who was killed) giving him directions on where the gun should be pointed. If it needed to be pointed at a person, it needs to NOT have a live round (with projectile) in it. I am not well educated on single action pistols but understand from reading these posts the trigger still needs to be pressed to allow the firing pin to drop against the primer? I know some older revolvers have a firing pin as part of the hammer and newer ones have a transfer bar or other mechanisms requiring the trigger be actuated for the weapon to fire. Alec said he thumbed the hammer back but released it. If that Colt single action was not a drop safe model, could it fire if he just released the hammer without depressing the trigger? Assuming there was a charged round in chamber.