Prop gun accident kills cinematographer and injures director

Lots of 'prop' guns operate the same as 'real' guns and plenty are real guns mislabeled as 'prop' guns simply because they fire blanks.

Blank rounds sound real, make the gun act real and tend to draw a more realistic response from people/actors on set however when not used right are still perfectly able to cause fatal injuries, and that's with them functioning perfectly.

A lot of people dont realise that there is potentially fatal debris expelled from the muzzle when a blank is fired. It's not an issue from distance but up close is the problem and it's sounds like this may have been the case here.

Not sure how this could have happened as everyone should have been trained on the use of these guns and protocols in place for their use. Ive used blanks for shows and wouldn't dream of pointing them at someone (you use perspective to trick people) and that's loaded or unloaded.

The most important rule with guns is treat them as if they are loaded AT ALL TIMES!

A truly horrible incident and feel bad for Baldwin who'll have to carry this for the rest of his days even if he was not to blame, and of course everyone else involved in this tragic incident.

Very sad, I'm sure a lawsuit will follow.

Halyna spent time here last year, quarantining in Dublin, then filming in Birr. She loved it, by all accounts. What a horrible thing to happen.

the dumbest think you will read today

I guess we labour under the impression that there are processes in place that everyone sticks to. But even that Will Smith video above, while proving Smith knows his stuff, also proves that in general, safety processes and knowledge is severely lacking. "Here's a table full of guns, pick your favourites". Nobody checking that anyone has a clue how to handle a gun, nobody handing out the weapons one-by-one, just a free-for-all, "Pick your weapon". Madness.

It would be like a building site opening up in the morning and just having the keys to all the heavy machinery on a table and telling the lads to go ahead and pick one.

Thing is a normal society with a healthy attitude to firearms you wouldn't need to do this, as nobody would be putting live ammo next nigh or near a prop gun...

I wonder is there any need for 'real' or potentially real guns on movie sets at all. Surely they can make highly accurate replicas nowadays. Maybe if the actor feels they need a bit of training on what firing the real thing feels like, do that off in a firing range, but don't bring actual guns onto the set...

There's zero reason for any film to have actual loaded weapons on set. There would be a tiny amount of people in the audience that would be able to distinguish between a real firing gun and a blank firing prop. And if someone can and makes a big deal out of it, they'd really be in need of questioning their own priorities.

But the thing is on American movie sets, if you have 'blank firing props' that are capable of firing real bullets you'll apparently have wasters in the crew who'll be putting real bullets in them and using them for target practice during downtime on the shoot. So I'm saying should have essentially toy guns incapable of firing real ammo that look exactly like the real thing for film and tv work. Maybe have some tiny watermark on them so cast and crew can check they're not a real gun.

I don't think this was a blank. The projectile passed through Halyna Hutchin's chest and also injured Joel Souza in the clavicle. No blank is going to do that.

There's been accounts of crew members shooting beer cans with live ammo between scenes.

There's also a matter about unionised staff and non-unionised staff on the set of 'Rust'. It appears that the union staff were told to pack their bags because cheaper non-unionised staff were brought in. Whether that had any impact on the team of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed (the armourer) is unclear.

A lot of potential money to be made on the back of the shooting, with the prospect of ghouls checking the film out because somebody died on set.

Jayziz was not expecting that alright.

All publicity is good publicity then.