Baldwin will say that it's the armorer's job to ensure weapons are loaded with blanks only. Also, since he was firing towards the camera, the director may have told him to fire towards the camera or told the cinematographer to stand in front of the gun. The police probably would have arrested him already if they thought they could make anything stick. The one thing that could change that would be if they had evidence he was horsing around and/or threatening people.

Rust was a small budget movie that probably only had one prop person. That person might not be a weapons expert, and he or she might also have been working for 48+ hours straight, and blanks don't always look terribly different from wadcutters.

The movie will never be finished. The prop person will never work in movies again and will be sued into financial ruin. The movie company will be sued and their insurance will pay out millions to the victim's family. The director probably won't sue anyone if he wants to work again.

Baldwin's attorney(s) will hire PR people who likely are already arranging an Oprah moment where he cries on TV and talks about what a tragedy gun violence is and how he's donating his time and money to gun control, totally ignoring the hypocrisy of his using a gun to make a living.


"The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that lightening ain't distributed right." - Mark Twain