A cinematographer died after Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun on set. Here's why blank ammunition and prop guns can still be deadly.

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A cinematographer died after Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun on set. Here's why blank ammunition and prop guns can still be deadly.
Halyna Hutchins (L) and Alec Baldwin (R.) Halyna Hutchins/Instagram, Jim Spellman/Getty Images
  • Prop guns and blank cartridges are used on Hollywood sets to simulate real gunfire.
  • Blanks are cartridges tipped with material, but they can cause serious damage at close range.
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One person died and another was injured after a prop gun discharged by the actor Alec Baldwin hit crew members on the set of "Rust," the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office said Thursday.

Authorities are still investigating the details of the case, but a spokesperson for Baldwin told the Associated Press that the incident involved the misfire of a prop gun containing blank cartridges.

Halyna Hutchins, the director of photography on "Rust," was killed, and the director Joel Souza was injured, the sheriff's office said. Souza was later treated in the hospital.

'These things are dangerous'

On movie sets, filmmakers use prop guns - which are either fake guns or real guns reserved for use on set - for gunfire scenes.

These prop firearms are often filled with blank cartridges, better known as "blanks."

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Blanks are cartridges tipped with a thick wad of material or paper. When a blank is fired, the cartridge is ejected out of the barrel just like a normal bullet would, along with a bang, flash, or smoke.

Even though a blank is much softer than a real bullet, it still travels at rapid speed out of the barrel. At close range, it can cause serious damage.

On movie sets, the control and use of prop guns is controlled by an armorer.

"We, professional film armorers, 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," the theatrical armorer John Bowring, who worked on "Hacksaw Ridge," told the Australian broadcaster Triple M.

Over the years a number of people, including actors, have died from injuries sustained by blanks.

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In October 1984, the actor Jon-Erik Hexum died on the set of the TV series "Cover Up" by shooting himself in the head with a blank cartridge while pretending to play Russian Roulette. A piece of Hexum's skull was pushed into his brain by the blank, giving him brain damage, and he died after entering a coma.

In November 2008, a 15-year-old boy in Utah died after shooting himself in the head with a blank loaded into a prop gun used in a school play.

'Prop guns are guns'

In the wake of Hutchins' death, a number of Hollywood personalities tweeted to say that prop guns are dangerous.

"Prop guns are guns," the "Magnum PI" writer David Slack tweeted.

"Blanks have real gunpowder in them. They can injure or kill - and they have. If you're ever on a set where prop guns are treated without proper caution and safe handling, walk away."

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The "Westworld" director Craig Zobel tweeted: "There's no reason to have guns loaded with blanks or anything on set anymore. Should just be fully outlawed."

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