I guess nobody should have been surprised at the news that broke a few weeks ago that Alec Baldwin was suing a bunch of other people who worked on Rust. We also can't be terribly surprised that the word "accident" was used to describe Baldwin's actions that led to the death of Halyna Hutchins.
That said, it's important to note that, in the legal context, by Baldwin's own statements, it's almost impossible for his actions to fall into the definition of "accidental."
When it comes to actions that unintentionally lead to death, an accident is something that you did in the context of not knowing that you were creating a dangerous situation and not being expected to know that you were creating a dangerous situation. That clearly doesn't apply to Baldwin.
Now, there's negligence and recklessness - this is important. Negligence is when you didn't know that you were creating a dangerous situation; but, a reasonable person should know - that carries civil liability. Baldwin's actions at least fall under the umbrella of negligence.
Recklessness is when you know that you're doing something dangerous and you do it anyway. That's something that can land you in prison.
I know that I'm probably in the minority here; but, it seems more than plausible that Baldwin's actions fall under the umbrella of recklessness. He clearly knows that guns are dangerous - otherwise he wouldn't have gotten involved with NoRA. He said himself that he knows not to point guns directly at people and pull the trigger. He knew that he was holding a real gun that was capable of shooting real bullets.
Seriously, Kim Potter is in prison, and there's an abundance of evidence that she acted negligently rather than recklessly. She thought that she had a taser in her hand because pedal confusion got the best of her in a tense situation. There's no way that Baldwin didn't know that he was holding a gun. There's much more reason for Baldwin to be facing prison time than Kim Potter.
