The Buck Stops Here? By Nick Fodera

Yesterday, the District Attorney in New Mexico decided to charge Alec Baldwin with 2 counts of involuntary manslaughter over the 2021 accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the indie western, “Rust”. Hutchins tragically died when Baldwin’s prop gun, inexplicably loaded with live ammo, accidentally discharged during the filming of a scene. Since the incident, Baldwin’s done the rounds on every news and talk show he can, claiming that he didn’t pull the trigger and he had no idea that live rounds were in the gun when he used it.

Now, it may indeed have been an accident, and willful criminal negligence can be hard to prove, but let’s not act like Baldwin’s totally blameless here. As a producer on the film and the biggest name involved in its production, he obviously has at least SOME say in how the set is run. The fact that the set itself was highly unsafe and that there were crew members quitting over it can’t be overlooked. However, to focus only on Baldwin because, well, he’s Alec Baldwin, is to miss the point, I think. On every set, there’s supposed to be multiple people handling firearms safety and an intricate system of checks to make sure no actor is ever handed a weapon with live ammo. The fact that no one, BUT NO ONE, ever thought to check the weapon for live rounds, points to colossal negligence on the part of the film’s production crew. Even the fact that real bullets were on the set in the first place when they shouldn’t have been is damning as well. Whether you like or dislike Alec Baldwin, the buck doesn’t stop only with him.

To me, the issue is one with lax safety standards on movies. What this incident really proves is that if the crew behind a movie can’t be bothered to do their jobs to keep everyone on it safe, then tragedies like this one will keep occurring again and again. Maybe switching to plastic guns will help, maybe they won’t. But a serious conversation about safety has to take place in Hollywood.