I followed this story for a while and read quite a few articles. I came to the following conclusion:
The core problem was an incompetent Armorer, Hannh Gutierrez, or perhaps the assistant director, Dave Halls.
This is a damning statement from one of the articles:
“Court records indicate that an assistant director, Dave Halls, grabbed a prop gun off a cart and handed it to Baldwin, indicating incorrectly that the weapon didn’t carry live rounds by yelling ‘cold gun.’”
It’s possible it WAS cold when placed on the cart, but then a bunch of crew members loaded it for some fun target shooting and then put it back, and it was just “assumed” the gun was still unloaded. And, of course, that last part speaks to how a LOT of people are killed by “unloaded” guns.
It’s possible that a LOT of people could be culpable in this. Whoever last held the gun and was responsible for ensuring it was unloaded could be held responsible, but if AFTER that person handled it, someone else loaded it, that brings up a whole new problem.
Baldwin cocked the single action pistol, aimed it at the cinematographer’s chest, and pulled the trigger. Blasted her in the chest at near point-blank range.
Is there any way to find this out for sure? Seems to me to be an important point that no "reporter" has brought up. Who was plinking with it? Who put it back on that table?