Charges may be filed against Alec Baldwin

(Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Alec Baldwin isn’t a gun guy. We know this because he’s spent so much time telling the world just how anti-gun he really is. He’s gone on and on about gun control, making it clear how little he understood about firearms, gun laws, or anything else related to them.

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But if he’d been a bit of a gun guy, he might well not be looking at the potentiality of charges being filed against him right now.

New Mexico prosecutors have indicated they may charge Alec Baldwin over the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of his movie Rust last year, after the actor handed over his cellphone to be considered as evidence.

In a letter to the state’s financial board, asking for funding to prosecute the high profile case,  Santa Fe District Attorney District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said she was ‘ready’ to file charges against four people.

She stopped short of confirming the charges she planned to bring, but said was ‘certainly looking all the homicide statutes and any gun statutes under New Mexico criminal code’.

‘One of the possible defendants is well known movie actor Alec Baldwin,’ she wrote.

Carmack-Altwies asked for $635,000 to prosecute the case, saying she needed the money to go up against well-paid attorneys.

It sure sounds like Baldwin is about to land in court and looking at potential murder charges.

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Now, let me be clear, I don’t know anything about the peculiarities of New Mexico law and no, I’m not a lawyer. However, I’ve always thought manslaughter charges were the most appropriate for what we know of Baldwin’s shooting of Hutchinson.

Based on what we know, there was no intention to cause harm, just a reckless disregard for safety. That’s typically manslaughter.

So does Carmack-Altwies know something the rest of us don’t? Does she know some animosity between the actor and cinematographer that would suggest this was intentional?

Who knows.

Not only that, but she says she’s going over homicide statutes, but not that she’s charging him with homicide, and that’s a subtle but important difference. She may well look and figure some other charge is appropriate.

What matters, though, is that it looks like Baldwin’s protestations of complete and total innocence really are falling on deaf ears. Then again, when the FBI finds that the gun that was in his hands couldn’t have just “gone off” as he’s claimed, there’s not any reason anyone should listen.

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However, the best part of this is that it looks like Carmack-Altwies isn’t interested in letting Baldwin walk because he’s a big celebrity or anything. I’m sure he’s had many instances where he’s gotten away with stuff because he’s a star, but that doesn’t look to be happening right now.

That’s good news because, well, it sure looks like his negligence resulted in someone’s death.

The kicker here, though, is that if he’d been more of a gun guy, he’d have kept his booger hook off the trigger and wouldn’t have pulled it, even by accident. Instead, he’s been proudly anti-gun and didn’t bother to learn any better.

Now he may land in prison because of it. Both ironic and a touch beautiful in my book.

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