Actor Alec Baldwin has been adamant about what happened on the set of the movie Rust. He’s repeatedly sworn that he did nothing wrong, nothing that led to the death of Halyna Hutchins. “Well, the trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger,” Baldwin said.

However, a new video of a rehearsal raises some interesting questions:

The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office has released evidence related to the deadly shooting on “Rust” movie set in New Mexico last year. Included is this clip of the scene where the film’s cinematographer was killed by a gun in Alec Baldwin’s hands pic.twitter.com/enNq4sJLo7

— J.D. Miles (@jdmiles11) April 25, 2022

Now, note where Baldwin’s finger is when he cocks the hammer. That’s right, the old booger-hook is on the bang switch. That makes it really hard to believe Baldwin didn’t “pull” the trigger.

Some have argued that it’s a semantics argument, that when Alec Baldwin says he didn’t “pull” the trigger, what he meant was that he didn’t exert any force intentionally that would cause the weapon to fire.

And that may well be completely accurate.

However, no one has ever really suspected Baldwin of intentionally firing that gun. No one ever suspected he intentionally pulled the trigger.

What we’ve suspected is that Baldwin–an anti-Second Amendment voice whose likely only been exposed to firearms through his work as an actor–simply applied a bit too much pressure.

Nothing in this really makes me think otherwise.

Stephen Gutowski of The Reload took a look at the video and offered his own analysis.

It appears Baldwin had his finger on the trigger when he pulled the hammer back and released it. If so, that would cause the hammer to fall, strike the primer on the round of ammunition, and fire. https://t.co/taBtaBFXFY

— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) April 26, 2022

I agree fully.

Far too often in movies, we see actors put their fingers on the triggers almost immediately upon drawing them, particularly in westerns but not exclusively in them. Frankly, I think it inspires a lot of people to do the same when they first get firearms.

Especially when they see Alec Baldwin or some other big-name actor doing just that. After all, they have experts on the set to make sure they do all this stuff right, right?

Well, they have the experts, but do the actors listen to them?

Regardless, it does look likely that Baldwin did pull the trigger.

Now, much as I don’t care for Baldwin in a lot of ways, this isn’t all on him. There was a live round in the chamber of a gun that was handed to him by an assistant director–one who has been trying to cover his own butt for a while now–that illustrates there were plenty of failures to go around.

Speaking of the assistant director, it seems his claims are on even shakier ground.

His attorney said, “The entire time Baldwin had his finger outside the trigger guard parallel to the barrel.” The video here suggests Baldwin was doing no such thing.

Of course, it’s possible that what happened looked nothing like the above video, but that seems particularly unlikely. After all, extending that finger is a habit. You either do it all the time or you’re not likely to do it at all.

As a result, Hutchins isn’t coming back to life. She’s gone and there are still questions to be answered. However, what we do know is that a lot of people are making claims that simply aren’t backed up by the evidence available to the public.

Alec Baldwin should be wary of taking on any big film roles for a little while since he might not be in a position to fulfill his obligation.