I despise this arrogant prick as much as anyone on FR, but elementary fairness requires that no stone be left unturned. It is entirely possible that one of his film crew set him up by loading the gun, and then he was criminally negligent by not checking whether the weapon was loaded. That wouldn’t negate his responsibility (though he thinks that it would), and wound actually damage his reputation more - because his arrogant and overbearing behavior drove someone to commit murder to get back at him. Oh, and YES, if this is the case then whomever loaded the gun needs jail for life.
Or the armorer just simply negligently permitted a hot gun on the tray. It was Reed's first major job as an armorer, but she also had a 'mentor' on the set, Seth Kenney, who actually provided the Colt .45 in question.
And that was Shooter's initial lawyer-provided strategery - blame it on the armorers. Literally a no-brainer, and didn't make Baldwin look like an idiot (or more importantly, a criminal): "The armorer placed a hot gun on the tray. Period. End of life. End of story."
Almost inexplicably, though, in the ABC Snooze interview 12.2.21, which Baldwin sold himself to (demanded), Baldwin insensibly pivoted to Smolletting himself: "I didn't shoot. I didn't do it.", and he has dropped straight off that cliff ever since.
So the enhanced Occam's, as shared by you and most everyone on this thread, is that Badshot's iPhone has something he desperately wants to hide.
I thought the affair idea was iffy but it looks more plausible every day.
BTW people wondering why he doesn't want to turn over the iPhone, between Shooter's service carrier (prob ATT or Verizon) and Apple (iCloud), law enforcement can retrieve a shitton of communication info, BUT iMessage is encrypted end-to-end.