Not even Alec Baldwin can get away with shooting a woman to death
Tiana Lowe
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More than a full year after the now-infamous shooting, Alec Baldwin will finally face charges. New Mexico prosecutors investigating the shooting on the set of the film Rust are charging Baldwin, who was both a lead actor and producer on the Western, with involuntary manslaughter for killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Prosecutors also plan to charge the film’s armorer, Hannah-Gutierrez Reed, with involuntary manslaughter. The film’s first assistant director, David Halls, will plead guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon.
Baldwin, who has previously used his privilege to escape accountability for violent outbursts, faces a maximum sentence of 18 months for the manslaughter charge, a fourth-degree felony under New Mexico law. Perhaps Hutchins deserved more from the criminal justice system, but it is a severe blow to Baldwin’s campaign to deflect blame that he is being charged at all.
ALEC BALDWIN CHARGED WITH MANSLAUGHTER IN HALYNA HUTCHINS SHOOTING
Baldwin, the actor, has maintained that despite his dereliction of duty in checking the chamber of the gun for bullets, he didn’t actually pull the trigger of the gun when he aimed it directly at Hutchins. After investigating the shooting, the FBI determined that this claim was false — or, as an objective observer would deem it, a face-saving lie.
But Balwin, the producer, could not possibly escape justice via semantics and cock-and-bull stories. Shooting a woman to death — with a gun that had not been checked for bullets on a set where producers tolerated “plinking,” or playing target practice with live rounds — may have been unintentional, but it was no mere accident.
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At issue here are not ill intentions but Baldwin’s hubris and carelessness about others’ lives. He failed to realize that guns, in fact, do not kill people — people irresponsibly firing guns kill people.
While Baldwin may deserve more than a few months in prison for taking a life, the criminal charge against him at least proves that, contrary to his claims, he is no victim here.