Denial.
Having dealt with traumatic events and people recovering from them, I am not surprised he does not remember pulling the trigger. I remember a case where a guy did an action that seriously injured a coworker. It wasn’t reckless, the machine failed and in that failure a part struck a coworker in a supposed “safe” area.
The first guy was convinced he did not start the machine. We had him on video starting it up (we did not blame him, because he had no reason to expect it to explosively fail). He kept saying “Why would I hurt my friend?”
We had video, but his brain blocked out what happened.
Baldwin may be lying knowingly, but he may be blocking out the event subconsciously
My dislike of Alex Baldwin makes me want to believe he is lying, but you probably on the right track here.
That’s the only reason I can think of why he would say this when there a room full of people who saw something different.
He’s too devious to be playing ignorant for real....
....what about the tears?
...not convincing either