Alec’s a brilliant actor and was no doubt put in a terrible position but the hard truth is that a revolver is almost impossible to have an AD (accidentally discharge) by the nature of the design.

I watched his defense attorney’s opening remarks and was shocked at how clumsy the lawyer seemed off the starting blocks and how little he seemed to know about firearms.

There’s no way I think Alec Baldwin had an intention to shoot another person on the set of Rust, and that’s the sad part. Two people’s lives were ruined that day. Alec Baldwin‘s and cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

The biggest weakness I see in the defense’s case is that Alec said he didn’t pull the trigger.

Revolvers are a favorite weapon of mine because they are extremely reliable and safe if handled appropriately.

In all my years in the SEAL Teams firing hundreds of thousands of rounds I’ve only seen one AD and it was a hot round that cooked off in a smoking hot M60 machine gun in the desert after live fire contact drills. Fortunately, the weapon was pointed in a safe direction and nobody was harmed.

I’ve conducted thousands of live fire ranges safely without incident as a range safety officer.

You have to cock a revolver manually, then fire with the hammer cocked in single action, or pull the trigger (through all stages) for it to fire double action.

Baldwin’s defense attorneys are painted into a corner before the trial even started with their client’s claim of not pulling the trigger.

Plus I think it’s a huge mistake to have a New York attorney representing Baldwin in New Mexico. That’s not going to sit well with a NM jury. I would have picked local standout and had him front the defense with the New York lawyers on the team but not fronting for Baldwin.

The defense also said they have multiple witnesses that observed him pulling the trigger. The footage shown by the Defense prior to the fatal scene also showed Alec drawing the weapon with his finger on the trigger both times.

Human psychology often drives individuals to forget traumatic or distressing events as a defense mechanism. This phenomenon, known as motivated forgetting, can cause people to unintentionally distort or erase certain memories to protect themselves from emotional pain.

A study by Anderson and Green (2001) demonstrated that people could actively suppress memories through deliberate cognitive processes. This might explain why Alec Baldwin insists he never pulled the trigger; the psychological stress and trauma of the incident could have led him to unconsciously alter his recollection of the events to mitigate his guilt and distress.

Convincing a jury that a cold weapon just “spontaneously” fired when witnessed come forward and say otherwise is a hard sell to a New Mexico jury in this SEAL sniper’s opinion.

I feel for Alec, but at some point, we all have to take responsibility for our actions, and any person holding a real firearm has personal accountability regardless of your profession.

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