There’s tone-deaf – and then there is tone-deaf. And then there is Alec Baldwin.
Last week an eruption of gunfire interrupted a youth baseball game in South Carolina. A brief video of the incident posted on social media shows the shots ringing out and stunned players and coaches standing frozen before they realize what the noise is and hit the deck.
Thankfully no one was injured. Local media in Charleston reported that some teenagers were involved in a fistfight when one or more of them pulled guns and opened fire. Police are still investigating.
Liberals seized on the incident to call for gun control. The left-wing group Occupy Democrats circulated the video on Instagram with a post that said, “This is what the NRA has done to America.”
That hyperbole aside, Baldwin entered the conversation on Friday with the dumbest comment of all.
“The very childhoods of our kids interrupted by this insanity. We regulate many things in this country in the interest of public health and safety. Drugs, cars, professional licenses, etc. We need gun control reform. Now,” Baldwin posted.
Yes, this is the same Alec Baldwin who shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins last fall on the set of a movie he was starring in.
Baldwin was given a prop gun in a controlled environment and still managed to fatally shoot Hutchins and wound one of the producers.
Reports from the scene suggested Baldwin did not even check to see if the gun provided him was loaded. Baldwin has claimed it was not his job to see if someone handed him a loaded pistol.
He has not been charged yet and has denied responsibility for killing Hutchins, who left behind a husband and a 9-year-old son.
“Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is,” Baldwin told ABC News in an interview shortly after the fatal shooting. “But I know it’s not me.”
Hutchins’ family disputes that.
While the authorities have not acted, her family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Baldwin and the producers of the film, “Rust.”
“Alec Baldwin recklessly shot and killed Halyna Hutchins on the set,” the family maintained in court records. “Defendant Baldwin and the other defendants, in this case, failed to perform industry-standard safety checks and follow basic gun safety rules while using real guns … with fatal consequences.”
But Baldwin’s recent social media post calling for gun control is only the latest example of his audacity.
In March, he actually filed an arbitration claim against the movie’s producers. He asserted that his contract shielded him from responsibility for anything that happened on the set.
In the court documents, Baldwin contends his deal with Rust Movie Productions serves to “indemnify, defend, and hold harmless” Baldwin “from and against any loss, damage, liability, claim, demand, action, cost and expense” arising “from and/or in connection with” the movie. And that includes his legal fees, which he demands that the producers pay.
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