"Guns don't just go off. The single action Colt .45 revolver handled by Alec Baldwin required multiple active steps to discharge and kill Halyna Hutchins," Luper said in the statement. "The gun had to be loaded with live ammunition, held and pointed, the hammer of the weapon manually cocked, and the trigger pulled. It was not a magic self-firing weapon."
While the above statement is essentially true, it is remotely possible for any gun to fire without the trigger being pulled, which is why you are supposed to always keep it pointed in a safe direction. According to the article, the particular firearm in question was a single action revolver, which means the hammer has to be manually cocked before each shot, but there is a way to deliberately cheat on this. If the trigger is held back while the hammer is "fanned" with the other hand, the gun will fire with each fall of the hammer. You may remember seeing this in an old western movie or TV show. Baldwin claims, however, that he didn't pull the trigger at all, much less hold it back. Assuming this is true, we can rule out that particular possibility. A way the gun could fire accidentally is if the shooter's thumb slips off the hammer before it clicks into the fully cocked position but, assuming the gun is in good working order, the trigger would still have to be held back. If the gun is not in good working order, however, it's possible that it could fire this way without the trigger being pulled.
I'm sure that whoever is investigating the incident will thoroughly inspect the gun to see if it's in good working order. Assuming the movie is set in the 19th Century, any gun contemporary to the era would be considered an antique today and shouldn't be fired at all with modern ammunition. It's more likely that the gun in question is an authentic looking reproduction, but I don't know that for a fact.
"Gutierrez Reed — who was in charge of overseeing gun safety and usage on set — said on the day of the incident that she had ensured that the ammunition intended for production consisted of “dummies” and did not include “hot” rounds, according to the affidavit." (Same source)
This is unlikely. Dummy rounds contain no powder or viable primer so they cannot be fired at all. What she probably meant to say was "blanks", which contain powder and primer but no bullet. There is a fiber or plastic plug in the tip where the bullet would normally be to keep the powder from falling out and keep it under a certain amount of pressure so that it will fire reliably. This plug can cause injury or even death at close range. The safety limit we used in the army was 15 feet, but that was from an abundance of caution. I don't know how close you would have to be to cause harm with blanks, I suppose it would depend on where the victim was hit, with the eyes being the most vulnerable part.
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