The standard rule of gun handling, (as I and others have mentioned), is to NEVER assume a gun is "cold" regardless of who hands it to you.I guess my issue with Baldwin's case is that he did hire an armorer. That must have cost $200K+ seeing how she had to be on site and such. All she had to do was make sure the gun was safe. Surely, no matter how inexperienced, from a hiring person's point of view, he did what he needed to safeguard against a live bullet being in the gun. No? I mean even an ordinary citizen with some gun knowledge would be able to assure said gun was safe to hand the Baldwin.
On top of that, didn't someone else shout that the gun was cold? If so, then Baldwin had more than one reason to think the gun was safe.
Clearly he had no intention of shooting or killing anyone. So the question is only one of negligence.
The other angle on this is all the money that is going to be wasted representing and prosecuting him. Surely that money could be put to much better use than a trial on a marginal case like this. I would think he will eat through $1M to $2M without trying hard. Let's use that money for some other cause that will do some good.
Further, Baldwin apparently broke additional rules of gun handling: (i) he didn't point the gun in a safe direction, (ii) he put his finger on the trigger without the immediate intention of firing. And then certainly he pulled the trigger -- his claim that he didn't is not believable prima facie.
In criminal terms the line between criminal negligence and involuntary manslaughter is too fine for me to call as a non-lawyer, but I lean to the latter. As for civil liability, I'd guess the tab will be pretty high for Baldwin.