One of the armorer's on this site said that the "dummy" rounds with a dead primer, have a BB inside that you shake and know it isn't a live round...I'll leave that to the professionals here to discuss.
Just because idiot Baldwin pulled the trigger doesn't mean he's fully at fault, just look at the Brandon Lee accident. The actor took a gun from the armorer that contained blanks, the scene required him to shoot Lee in the stomach with a blank, the gun did have BLANKS yet shards of metal in the barrel came out and struck Lee. After 6 hours of surgery he died, the actor that "shot" him as instructed voluntarily didn't work for 15 years.
Was the incident his fault ?, how do you fire the pistol into the ground 6 times when it holds blanks for the shot ?
They were not using blanks. So, yes, they could have fired the cylinders at the ground.
But, despite two previous screw-ups, they didn't......
