Alec Baldwin fatally shoots woman with prop gun

It was a prop gun accident that killed Brandon Lee on set of the crow.

Might have been crowded around the camera to see the scene clearly, apparently he was shooting directly at the camera like Pesci at the end of Goodfellas.

Yeah that sounds plausible, the gases from the bullet still expand and the wadding flies out, as I said if anyone's close enough it can and will certainly kill them.

I knew it was something like that but couldn't remember exactly. I thought it was that two rounds fired off instead of one.

A lot of movies will use real guns with blank ammo which has no physical projectile ,you get the bang and flash but no bullet , other movies will use custom blankgun that cannot fire a real bullet,others will use rubber guns , if you watch the latest bond trailer you can see a gun bend when Daniel Craig falls on it ,

Seems several people may have dropped the ball when it came to the safety on this one

It's pressure that Comes out of the barrel ,I've used several blank fire rifles and other weapons ,if you fire into the ground with a blankfire at close range you will end up with a hole several centimetres across and deep ,

You never fire a blank weapon directly at someone your supposed to shoot left or right of a person and never directly at them as an extra precaution

A blank would still release a lot of gas pressure from the explosion. It just doesn't have the flying metal projectile that is seen as the bullet. If there is anything stuck in the barrel such as residual materials from blanks being fired or other things that can seriously hurt someone at close range.

Pretty rare occurrence considering how many movies have been made in the last 100 years that featured firearms scenes

Gas and particles come out at high speed and can injures for several feet. Happened on a set using a machine gun in the 1960's injuring several extras in front of the gun when firing!

Part of the safety brief with blanks in the army was for the instructor to shoot an empty coke can from 2-3 feet away. It would put holes through it. Yes, there is no actual bullet coming out of the barrel but you still have the gases and pressure needed to "cycle" the weapon (ejecting the spent round as the mechanism is going backwards, and picking up the next one from the magazine as it is coming back forward).

not really, you don't have to load it with blanks and could easily add in sound later, but thanks for your great contribution.

I don't understand how any actor could be handed a gun by the film studio without being explicitly reminded every single time, that even if this gun is not loaded with bullets, you always treat it like it's an armed weapon

That was the brandon lee case. there was a squib from a previous firing stuck in the barrel of the weapon and the armorer never checked before loading a blank. the armorer wasn't rushed, they were incompetent. They tried to make their own blank rounds from live rounds and fucked it up.

Article I read says a bullet was found lodged next to Lee's spine.

“The death of Brandon Lee in a filming incident took a startling turn Thursday when police revealed the actor was killed by what was apparently a .44-caliber bullet.

“What appeared to be a bullet was discovered lodged near Lee’s spine during an autopsy, calling into question the safety procedures on the set of the film.” https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-prop-gun-death-brandon-lee

exactly. a squib is a bullet that failed to exit the barrel.

Yeah, that's the squib. Fully armed bullets have the actual bullet, which is usually solid metal, inside a casing. In the casing is a small quantity of gunpowder to fire the bullet, and a primer - which is like the flint in a cigarette lighter. This is the familiar circular pattern at the bottom of a bullet.

The hammer in the gun strikes the primer, which causes a small burst, this ignites the gunpowder, which propels the bullet out of the gun. The casing is then discarded.

In Brandon Lee's case, the props team had self-modified bullets to remove the gunpowder but leave the bullet and primer together, so the gun looked realistically loaded. One of these "deactivated" shells was fired, and there was enough force in the primer to detach the bullet from the casing and force it into the barrel. When they removed the casing, nobody noticed the bullet was detached (or maybe thought nothing of it).

In the next scene they loaded a blank - a shell with gunpowder and primer with no bullet - and when that was fired it propelled the bullet out of the barrel. He may as well have shot with a live round.

What happened today, allegedly they were trying to get a shot of Baldwin firing directly into the camera, so the director and cinematographer were behind the camera looking at the screen as the gun was fired. The blank round could even have damaged part of the camera and that's what flew off and hit them. I guess we'll find out at a later time.

Seems insane after so many accidents that there aren't very specific protocols about the use of guns on-set. I would have thought at the very minimum you would need someone with a specific qualification whose job it is to manage any weapons on set, and protocols such as never, ever pointing a real weapon - regardless of whether it's loaded - in the direction of other people.

I didn't know Boards.ie had so many prop-masters.

100% What should have happened was that whomever was going to be using the gun on set should have been sent on a course for a few hours. Have their brain aligned to the dangers of its misuse...

furthermore as long as the gun was on the set it should have remained outside the control of actors until filming was commencing... ie. you are filming.. you are handed the gun by say security , in between takes you give it back...Baldwin or whoever wants to practice,, use a toy or rubber gun...