I'm not seeing the reason why movie sets need "special rules" or "protocols" involving guns? It makes absolutely no sense. ANYONE who handles a gun, be they a citizen, cop, military personnel, security guard, hunter, or Hollywood actor, should be trained how to safely handle it, period. Out of that whole bunch I just mentioned, why should actors be the only one's absolved of how to safely check a weapon to see if it is loaded, and observe the 4 rules of gun safety?
It's preposterous they should have a separate set of rules. Whenever you start involving more people to do what only one is required to do, you automatically enlarge the chance for failure, not success. People start to get lazy, and right away start in with all of the, "That's not MY job!", bull$h!t. And we saw what happened when their luck finally ran out.
It doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to open a loading gate, and spin a cylinder. And if we assume that Baldwin was in fact too stupid to perform that action, was he also too stupid to ask someone who was, to show him? The only time guns are dangerous is when people who don't know what they're doing start handling them. If Baldwin proved anything, he sure as hell proved that.