Legally, actors are not responsible for safety on the set. They are not responsible for checking to make sure any props are safe. Their job is to do as directed after props are already cleared. Otherwise, that would make actors responsible for being experts on EVERYTHING they have to handle, or work with, including but not limited to pyrotechnics, harnesses, animals, etc.
That would be impossible.
People are assuming that anyone who handles a firearm on a set, including the actors, are responsible for knowing basic gun safety. They are not.
There are extensive safety mechanisms involved in getting a prop to the actor or around the actor. Having actors be experts in those props is NOT one of those mechanisms, no matter the prop.
Prop guns are props. They are never supposed to have real bullets in them. Real bullets aren’t supposed to be on set. The only objects allowed to be loaded into a prop gun are blanks. And there are safety mechanisms involved with that as well. Saying “cold gun” means the gun not only does not have a bullet in it, it does not have a blank in it.
Some actors have never owned nor shot a real gun and do not know how to check a chamber. They are simply not responsible for that. Not legally.
And as for the comments that as gun safety rule number one, no one should ever point a gun at a person, those comments demonstrate a lack of understanding of the difference between the use of props on set and the use of guns in the real world.
Simply, any footage of a gun being pointed at the screen in a film? Some being shot at the screen? That gun was pointed at the camera and hence, the camera operator. There is no other way to do that other than CGI, which wasn’t always a thing.
Gun owners are expected to know basic safety rules. The entire world is not, including actors using props.
