Why do they even use real guns? And even when they do why aren’t they guns with locked/incapacitated barrels, blocked ?
I am sure that they could have disabled the hammer, detached the trigger so that it did not actually fire or maybe even dont allow real guns and bullets in filming locations?
Cover Up (1984). While waiting for an episode filming to resume, actor Jon-Erik Hexum played Russian roulette with a .44 Magnum loaded with a blank. The gunshot fractured his skull and caused massive cerebral hemorrhaging when bone fragments were forced through his brain. He was rushed to Beverly Hills Medical Center, where he was pronounced brain dead.>
huh, I missed that one, I was looking for live rounds, there are a few other instances involving blanks or prop guns:
The Girl of the Golden West (1915). Actor House Peters Sr. suffered serious burns to his face and hands when a prop pistol exploded upon being fired.
The General (1926). During filming of the epic comedy in Oregon, there were a number of incidents. Several National Guardsmen, employed as extras for the Civil War battle scenes, were injured by mishaps caused by misfired muskets or explosions. Director and star Buster Keaton was knocked unconscious when he stood too close to a cannon firing. Assistant director Harry Barnes was accidentally hit in the face by a blank charge. Train brakeman Fred Lowry sued the production for US$2,900 after his foot was crushed when it was run over by a locomotive wheel during filming of one of the railway scenes
Die Hard (1988). Bruce Willis lost two-thirds of his hearing in his left ear after firing a gun loaded with extra-loud blanks from underneath a table.
there was also:
My Life for Ireland (1941). An anti-British propaganda film made by Nazi Germany. During the epic final-battle scene set during the Irish Civil War, several extras were killed when one of them stepped on a live land mine. The footage is said to have been included in the release prints, although no proof of this has been established
but that’s more of a where did you get a live land mine issue.
I remember someone saying “there is no way this firearm could have fired, it was a modern reproduction gun with modern safety features like half cock”. So I went off and found the manual for that firearm and it explicitly mentioned things NOT to do, which included banging the gun, releasing the hammer etc. So regardless of modern safety features or not, even the manufacturer gave warnings that correspond to some of the statements Baldwin made about it just going off.
That doesn’t excuse sloppy firearm safety, or the use of live rounds, or the incompetence of the armorer. But like most things, an accident is not just one thing but a chain of events.
Why do they even use real guns? And even when they do why aren’t they guns with locked/incapacitated barrels, blocked ? I am sure that they could have disabled the hammer, detached the trigger so that it did not actually fire or maybe even dont allow real guns and bullets in filming locations?
A good armorer uses a mix of these techniques, and it usually isn’t a problem there have only been 3
gun injurieslive ammo shootings:-The Captive (1915). -The Crow (1994). -Rust (TBA).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_and_television_accidents#
This one too:
huh, I missed that one, I was looking for live rounds, there are a few other instances involving blanks or prop guns:
there was also:
but that’s more of a where did you get a live land mine issue.
Wow.
The actor didn’t actually pull the trigger. He pulled back the hammer on the revolver manually. I guess they needed a working hammer for the scene.
I remember someone saying “there is no way this firearm could have fired, it was a modern reproduction gun with modern safety features like half cock”. So I went off and found the manual for that firearm and it explicitly mentioned things NOT to do, which included banging the gun, releasing the hammer etc. So regardless of modern safety features or not, even the manufacturer gave warnings that correspond to some of the statements Baldwin made about it just going off.
That doesn’t excuse sloppy firearm safety, or the use of live rounds, or the incompetence of the armorer. But like most things, an accident is not just one thing but a chain of events.