He is perhaps the last person you would expect to see giving safety instructions but that is exactly what actor Alec Baldwin has been caught on camera doing, just a year after he was holding a gun that fired a fatal shot, killing cinematographer Helnya Hutchins, on the set of Rust.
On November 15, 2023, NBC News released video showing Baldwin giving gun safety tips on Rust set.
The video was released the day before a jury is set to consider manslaughter charges against Baldwin in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
Breitbart News noted that Hutchins died after being shot in the chest on the film set October 21, 2021. The prop gun with which Hutchins was shot was held by Baldwin but he claimed that he did not pull the trigger.
In fact, he told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that he cocked the gun that fatally shot the cinematographer for his unfinished film Rust — but insisted that he did not pull the trigger.
In the video, recorded in October 2021 and released this week by NBC News, Baldwin gives safety instructions on the set of Rust. In the video, Baldwin is firing a gun loaded with blanks and advising the crew on safety:
The gun Baldwin is using in the video — the same kind he used on the set on October 21, 2021 — is a single action revolver. Such a revolver is called a single action because the trigger only does one thing: it releases the hammer after the hammer has been manually cocked.
In other words, the single action mechanism requires multi-step manipulation in order to fire. The hammer has to be cocked and then the trigger has to be pulled.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.