re: Baldwin charged again

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Wouldn’t the gun be the responsibility of the prop department?

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It is the responsibility of everyone who handles a firearm to check the status of it.
It doesn't take more than 2 seconds to do that.
Even when I'm gun shopping and the guy checks a gun before he hands it to me and I see him do it, the first thing I do is check it again.

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What I understand is that it's the movie industry protocol to defer to the armorer.

The issue at play is that there is/may be a whole lot of people who might handle said gun/prop, and you can not rely on their experience or training. Therefore, the armorer is God, and you follow their commands to the letter. If they hand you a prop, you don't frick with it. That includes press-checking, opening the cylinder, dropping the mag, etc. THEY can do that, they can tell you to do that, but you don't do it without permission.
Because they don't want to hand you a prop, turn away from you to hand another out, and suddenly you're fricking around with it without eyes on you.

If you disagree with that, if you will check it if handed one anyway on set, consider a moment if you are the armorer instead of the actor. You have assured the gun is clear, handed it to him, turned away to the next person, and suddenly you hear racking or cylinder spinning.
You would then turn around and take it from them, and in no uncertain words say "do not ever do that again" before you hand it back to them, after confirming they didn't load it or something. It doesn't matter if the person is a former SEAL, or a 10 yr old kid who's never seen a live gun- you treat everyone the same way. You have to, because it's your job/career/livelihood on the line.

So in that setting, you have Baldwin, who's made a lot of big budget films, and used to following the (competent) armorer's direction. Has done so for 3 decades. As *ACTOR*, he doesn't know (for sure) if it's even a real gun, or a well-made prop piece. He is (should be) operating on the understanding that the armorer is doing their job, and not handing out live loaded guns, live grenades, real sticks of dynamite, vials of nerve gas, cyanide laced gum etc. Or maybe as an example, when handling a plunger, it isn't "really" going to set off a bunch of explosives and blow the bridge or whatever. Even if said plunger does have wires running over to the bridge, and you know at some point the bridge actually WILL be blown as a 'real' effect.

That's what's supposed to be going on, at least.