as you pull the hammer to the rear the trigger engages on it and when you pull the trigger it disengages, allowing the hammer to fall forward and igniting the cartridge. if the hammer is to the rear and he s pulling the hammer back and let s go of that hammer, that s the only way that gun could fire is if the trigger is already to the rear. if he decided not to just let go of the hammer but to have slowly put the hammer back, the gun would not have fired, is that right? correct, yes. if you gently allow the hammer to fall forward, it will not set off the cartridge. so, sarah, as a criminal defense attorney, i m wondering what you make of what alec baldwin was saying there he did not pull the trigger. i guess the question then, is he liable because he released the hammer as opposed to slowly bringing the hammer back to its original position? well, look, anderson, i m not
an increased risk of infections some serious. and the lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms. or if you ve had a vaccine or plan to. tell your doctor if your crohn s disease symptoms. develop or worsen. serious allergic reactions may occur. watch me. ask your rheumatologist about cosentyx. good evening again. topping the hour, he says he did not pull the trigger yet the gun still fired. alec baldwin breaking his silence on the shooting of the movie set rust that killed halyna hutchins and injured the director. he said he was blocking the scene on how to hold an antique revolver when the prop gun that somehow had a live round in it went off. this is the subject of a criminal investigation. we re going to discuss with our legal expert shortly as well as a movie armorer. first, alec baldwin talking the in detail about the incident
with abc s george stephanopoulos. i said in this scene i m going cock the gun. do you want to see that? she said yes. i take the gun and i start to cock the gun. she said, tilt it down a little bit like that. i cocked the gun. i go, can you see that? can you see? can you see that? then i let go of the hammer of the gun and the gun goes off. i let go of the hammer of the gun and the gun goes off. at the moment. that was the moment the gun went off. it wasn t in the script for the trigger to be pulled. well, the trigger wasn t pulled. i didn t pull the trigger. so you never pulled the trigger? no, no, no, i would never point a gun at somebody and pull the trigger. never. that was the training. you don t point a gun at somebody and pull the trigger. this colt .45, you just had the gun and you pulled i pulled the hammer. i m just going, how about that? does that work? she said yeah, that s good. i let go of the hammer, bang, the gun goes off. everyone is horrified. they
a gun girl, but based on what scott s saying it really doesn t matter that he didn t pull the trigger because of the position of the trigger. so at the end of the day, it s about his mishandling of this gun, right? and his liability with respect to that. so we re looking at criminal liability and civil liability. he is absolutely certain he s not facing any criminal liability and i would say, never be so sure. there s still statute of limitations in new mexico. they can file charges at any time, although historically these types of shootings on hollywood sets have been accidents. there s always a first time. but ultimately, if he in fact did not cause the firing of this gun or did not mishandle this gun in a grossly negligent way that rises to the level of criminal negligence under new mexico law, then his liability is limited to civil. but if, you know, he s deemed to have you know, we heard him anderson talk about assumptions. i believed it was a cold gun.
they rattle. they have a bb in them. and have the actor acknowledge that it s a dummy. then load it with dummy rounds. then the armorer, points the gun at the ground, docks the hammer pulls the trigger for all six cartridges to demonstrate that it s a safe weapon. then at that point, the actor can check it himself, which e i encourage to do, or can acknowledge and say i witnessed that, and it s a safe gun. and that apparently was not done. i want to play another clip from the interview where alec addressed the budget from the movie, the lower budget contributed to the tragedy. let s watch. when people say cutting costs, i don t say this with any judgment or cynicism spielberg wants to save money. tom cruise wants to save money. everybody who makes movies has a responsibility not to be reckless and careless with the money that you re given. those are men who make movies that cost $205 million and i m making movies that cost