Well, a Nerf gun is a toy and a gun is a gun. If someone hands you a gun disguised as a toy, I agree that you shouldn’t be held responsible for accidentally shooting someone.
However, I don’t think that comparison tracks for guns loaded with blanks / deactivated firearms / prop guns. Pointing something that has any reasonable chance of being a not-disguised gun at someone and pulling the trigger is something you should refuse to do.
So if instead of a Western it was a sci fi movie and the gun was made up to look like a laser blaster and it fired and killed someone the actor would have a better defense?
Sure, that makes sense to me. I guess it stands to reason that the less something looks like a gun, the more understandable it is that someone would fail to follow the rules of gun safety while handling it.
And to be clear, none of what I say is meant to absolve the armorer. To my mind, all of the following are true:
The practice of using functional firearms alongside non-functional prop guns is dangerous and leads to incidents like this.
The armorer was negligent in letting a real round into a gun that was being used to shoot a scene (why were there even live rounds around to begin with?).
It is reckless and dangerous to point a real gun loaded with blanks at someone, and doubly so to pull the trigger. No scene in a movie is worth that risk, and everyone who decided the scene had to go that way shares the blame if something goes wrong.
Anyone who knows they will be handling a gun has a responsibility to learn how to do so safely.
Well, a Nerf gun is a toy and a gun is a gun. If someone hands you a gun disguised as a toy, I agree that you shouldn’t be held responsible for accidentally shooting someone.
However, I don’t think that comparison tracks for guns loaded with blanks / deactivated firearms / prop guns. Pointing something that has any reasonable chance of being a not-disguised gun at someone and pulling the trigger is something you should refuse to do.
So if instead of a Western it was a sci fi movie and the gun was made up to look like a laser blaster and it fired and killed someone the actor would have a better defense?
Sure, that makes sense to me. I guess it stands to reason that the less something looks like a gun, the more understandable it is that someone would fail to follow the rules of gun safety while handling it.
And to be clear, none of what I say is meant to absolve the armorer. To my mind, all of the following are true: