Sunday, Jan. 22, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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It’s a matter of personal responsibility.
The news last week that Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin has been charged in New Mexico with two counts of involuntary manslaughter for the tragic death of Halyna Hutchins on a movie set in 2021, while not unexpected, has taken the airwaves by storm.
There are people and opinions on all sides of this issue, from those saying Baldwin and his co-defendant, armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, should both be charged with murder, to those saying they should be freed from this tragic mess because it was just an accident. And everything in between.
I listened to the district attorney who brought the charges and explained her decision Thursday. She made some sense in that an innocent person was killed and someone has to take responsibility.
I also listened to multiple lawyers who suggested that while the accident was tragic, it was still just an accident and no one was to blame.
A jury — maybe, if this goes to trial — will decide the level of responsibility and who, if anyone, must be blamed.
Until that time, if it ever comes, there is one glaring lesson to be learned by all Americans. Especially now.
When I was growing up — and frankly, until just a few years ago — young people were taught that being a good person and doing the right thing had a lot to do with taking personal responsibility for our actions.
Lately, deflecting that responsibility for our individual actions has become some kind of sport in this country, whereby no one is to blame and everyone else is at fault. That’s hardly a way to run a country or a family. But there you have it and here we are.
This is especially true when it comes to our guns. And that is why this case against Baldwin is so important.
I don’t believe anyone thinks that the longtime actor had any intention of killing that young woman on the set of a movie he was making in New Mexico. Nor, as best I can tell, is there any evidence that anyone else on the set wanted that death to occur.
What happened was an accident and, according to “The Phantom of the Opera,” accidents, they do happen.
But I also remember my father telling me before he handed me the keys to his car: “There is no such thing as an accident; if you get into one, it is your fault!”
That was his way of impressing upon me that driving a car was a dangerous undertaking, so I had best be extra careful. The lesson took, although some accidents did happen.
But, when it comes to guns in this country, I am not sure that Americans are of the same mind. And that is what I believe a New Mexico jury may one day determine in this case.
If we take it upon ourselves to own, carry or use a gun, are we responsible for what that gun does? Is there an extra level of care that we owe to everyone else when we deal with a loaded weapon?
Do we have an obligation to keep our guns out of the hands of children who kill other children; deranged teenagers who kill other teenagers; homicidal maniacs who kill for the sake of some hate-filled ideology or racial bias; or anyone else who somehow gets our weapons and kills another person?
I have always believed that personal responsibility means just that. And whether we are driving a car or owning a weapon, that level of responsibility is more heightened.
And that is on what I believe Baldwin’s jury decision will turn. Did he and everyone else on that set have a heightened responsibility because there was a gun involved? Or is an accident just an accident to the point where negligence is a viable excuse.
The district attorney said she wants justice for Hutchins. She wants a jury to decide what that is.
This case makes me — and I hope every other American — want to know whether justice should hold those who have anything to do with guns equally responsible for what those guns do to other people.
There is always justification and there are always going to be accidents. It’s everything in between that cries out for an answer to the question:
What happened to personal responsibility?
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
