SAG/AFTRA Runs Cover For Alec Baldwin in ‘Rust’ Shooting Case

If you believe a new statement from SAG-AFTRA, knowing anything about the responsible and safe use of firearms is not part of an actor’s job description. So according to the union, Alec Baldwin is not accountable for the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of Rust on October 21, 2021. It is worth considering the implications of SAG-AFTRA’s stance and what it means for safety on film sets around the world, not to mention for the organization’s stated mission.

While there can be no doubt about the accidental nature of the shooting and the sincerity of Baldwin’s sadness and regret that it happened, the union has weighed in on the revived criminal charges against him with a pronouncement that’s curious, to say the least. It barely touches on any of the facts at the heart of the tragedy and is curiously selective about how it defines Baldwin’s role.

The statement reads, in part, “An actor’s job is not to be a firearms or weapons expert. Firearms are provided for use on set under the guidance of multiple expert professionals directly responsible for the safe and accurate operation of that firearm.”

Not exactly. Members of a film crew provide a firearm to an actor, but that in no way exempts the latter from all responsibility for its use or from basic concern for others’ safety. Just as an actor who drives a car before the cameras does not have a license to run over others with impunity, even though he or she may have had nothing to do with making, procuring, inspecting, or preparing the car for use, the “operator” of a gun has serious moral and ethical responsibilities. Ones that are all the more exigent because, unlike a car, a gun has no other purpose than to end a human life. The injunction “Don’t ever point a gun at someone unless you intend to kill the person” does not magically disappear the moment you amble from the normal world onto the temporary and ad hoc bounds of a movie set.

Moreover, contrary to what someone coming to this whole affair without any prior knowledge might believe from reading the SAG-AFTRA statement, Baldwin was not merely an actor on the set of Rust, subject to forces over which he had no control.

It is curious that New Mexico District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies, in her recent CNN interview, only briefly mentions Baldwin’s responsibility as the executive producer of Rust. She admonishes him for his failure to ensure a safe environment, and explains why criminal law in her state provides punishments when the failure to take obvious steps and exercise basic judgment results in the loss of a life.

It is the former part of her argument that goes to the heart of why SAG-AFTRA’s statement is so puzzling. Baldwin was not just an actor but, as attorney Gloria Allred has noted, Rust’s producer. As such, no one was more directly responsible for the hiring of properly trained and vetted personnel to carry out duties on the set, particularly where the use of lethal weapons was concerned. Baldwin was perfectly content to have a 24-year-old armorer who had little relevant experience, and who allegedly showed up for work hungover (and later tried to conceal her cocaine use from investigators), handle critical functions necessary to ensure the preservation of life on a set where people handled guns.

These disturbing facts do not reflect well on Baldwin. And if we were to extend the logic of the SAG-AFTRA statement, any actor can engage in behavior on a set that endangers or ends someone’s life, and can avoid responsibility for it. The actor can do so by merely blaming the crew for this and that, or—when you come down to it—can even create the circumstances for a non-prosecutable homicide by hiring unqualified or incompetent personnel to check, load, and provide a firearm to the actor.

SAG-AFTRA’s stance on the Rust tragedy reflects poorly on Baldwin, but most poorly of all on the union itself. Here we have an organization whose very raison d’être is to look out for the underdogs of the entertainment industry—those prone to suffer from exploitation, harassment, poor and unsafe working conditions, and other forms of mistreatment and abuse. When put to the test, SAG-AFTRA responds with a display of moral cowardice, ignoring common sense and siding with the big name in Hollywood who took the life of a talented woman, wife, and mother.

We often hear the complain there is one set of laws for the one percent, and another set for everyone else, that the poor burn for things that the rich get away with every day. In the face of the Rust tragedy, SAG-AFTRA has demonstrated loud and clear just how cozy it is with such an arrangement.