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I think a lot of the confusion is that they were between takes.
He was drawing the weapon and rehearsing what he was going to do as they were discussing the next take and she was watching him through the camera. But the shot they were going for was most definitely him pointing the gun at the camera. The AD, I believe, was the one that handed him the gun without verifying it was cleared.
Baldwin is guilty of putting trust in the people around him doing their jobs correctly.
I think that argument gets made by people who don’t really know what producers do. It could be anything from managing the people on set to putting their name on it for cred. I’m this car, Baldwin was partially responsible for the story.