A Hollywood director of photography lost her life on the sets of a movie starring Alec Baldwin in an incident involving the reported firing of a prop gun loaded with blanks. While the matter is under investigation and more information is awaited on the exact circumstances around the episode in which another person sustained injuries, blank weapons are known to cause injuries, including fatal ones. Here’s what you need to know.
What Is A Blank Cartridge?
Bullet and cartridge are terms often used interchangeably. But they are not the same thing. To describe what a blank is, we have to first understand the parts that make up the cartridge.
As the illustration below shows, the bullet (1) is that part of the cartridge that flies out of the barrel of the weapon and is designed to cause damage, given that it is a solid piece of metal, usually lead, which can penetrate the flesh upon release at high speed. The cartridge case (2) holds the ingredients that help fire the bullet, containing the propellant (3), like gunpowder or cordite. The rim (4) aids in the handling of the cartridge while the primer (5) causes the propellant to ignite when it’s struck by the firing pin upon the pulling of the trigger.
The action that occurs when a regular bullet is fired that the propellant ignited by the primer releases gasses whose sudden build-up causes the bullet at the top to be expended at great speed.
Now, a blank cartridge resembles a regular bullet on all but one crucial aspect — it does not have the bullet at its head, which is replaced by a swadding of paper, or cotton. Which means when the blank is fired, it creates all the noise and flash of the primer igniting the cartridge, but there is no metal bullet at the top that it sends hurling out.
According to a case study by Turkish researchers, “Are blank cartridge guns really harmless?", blank cartridge guns — said to have been used first in the Prussian army “for educational purposes" — are “devices that discharge sound and gas, but no bullet or shot".
“These devices are very similar to real guns in the form of their external design and the sound generated during their firing. Although it is widely held in society that these devices are harmless, reports from Turkey and the world have shown that these guns are not entirely innocent," they said.
How Can They Prove To Be Dangerous?
A statement from a spokesperson for Baldwin quoted by NBC News said the incident on the sets of the movie “Rust" involved “the misfire of a prop gun with blanks". While a prop gun would mean any gun used as a prop for a shoot, like fake, or toy, weapons, the use of real weapons that use blank cartridges is not uncommon, given that they are seen as providing a closer resemblance to the actual thing.
An online resource maintained by the University of Utah says that “guns firing blanks typically have the barrel blocked" and that blank pistols “are not considered firearms in most countries", although it, too, noted that “the propellant gases can produce severe and even lethal injuries".
A 2017 report by an Australian news outlet quoted a stunt professional as saying that “real guns are needed on film sets. Without real guns, you can’t fire blanks". Illustrating how such props can prove to be dangerous, the expert says “the best way I can describe it is a blank is a bullet without the ‘bullet’ projectile part of it".
“At the muzzle of a weapon, the energy is all there, you don’t need [a bullet], it is a highly focused explosive charge. The closer you get to the muzzle, the more dangerous it is," theatrical armourer John Bowring told Triple M, adding that, upon firing, a soft wadding comes out of the barrel at supersonic speed, which increases the danger.
The Turkish researchers say criminological studies have shown that the pressure at the tip of the barrel at discharge “may provide the energy necessary for penetrating the skin, and thus may lead to life-threatening injuries, especially when fired at close range". Their paper mentions that “various organ injuries due to these guns have been reported, and include head trauma and jugular venous, abdominal, and intra-oral injuries", adding that “head injuries in particular have been reported to be mortal".
Are Mishaps Involving Blank Cartridges Common?
While further details of the incident and investigation into the death of the 42-year-old director of photography Halyna Hutchins are still awaited and police charges were yet to be filed, reports suggest that cases of prop guns and blank cartridges causing fatal injury are not entirely unknown.
The actor Jon-Erik Hexum died in 1984 in an accident involving a gun loaded with blank cartridges when he pointed it to his head during a break on sets and pulled the trigger. Reports say that the wad used in place of the bullet in a blank cartridge, although it failed to penetrate his skull, left it fractured due to the speed of impact, causing his death days later.
Then there’s the death of Bruce Lee’s son Brandon Lee in 1993, again on a film set, when an improperly loaded gun saw a live cartridge getting fired off.
As Bowring said, “professional film armourers… would never consider blanks to be safe and not dangerous. It’s the first thing that we teach people — these things are dangerous, and used incorrectly they can kill you".
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October 22, 2021 at 03:35PM
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