I think on a film set, a gun loaded with dummies is 'cold' as they cannot fire.
I read this a few days ago:
According to an earlier affidavit filed by the Sheriff’s Office, Halls allegedly yelled “cold gun,” meaning the weapon was not loaded, as he was handing it to Baldwin. But the crew member who spoke to The Times remembers Gutierrez Reed as being the one to have pronounced the gun “cold.” A gun loaded with dummy rounds would be considered “cold” on a film set.
Sheriff: Lead bullet fatally struck 'Rust' cinematographer; 500 rounds of ammo recovered on set
Okay - well, we can agree to disagree. Blanks have killed people and in film school, people are taught to call ANY loaded gun "hot." Paper? Loaded. Bird seed? Loaded. Cap gun? Loaded.
On-set deaths from prop guns are rare — but not unheard of
I guess I am lucky to have only been on sets that were very safe. The college where I teach leases itself out as a set to many productions, have watched many and my students are often behind-the-camera people. Lots of friends in the industry. Lived near a fake western town as a kid, town itself was a set for many a movie (still is).
So some of you believe a gun loaded with blanks is safe enough to use in any movie scene and is therefore "cold." Fortunately, I am betting that Mr. Hall did not in fact think there were blanks (or anything) in that gun he handed to Mr. Baldwin (hence "COLD GUN" so that people could remain in places where possible gasses and shrapnel from blanks would not harm them).
So - if there are BB's inside (as with some blanks), that's still a "Cold Gun"....SMH here. Keep in mind that several armourers have said that BB's are often inside "blanks." (Which is why they are called "hot" and why they must be treated precisely as any other gun should be treated.
I suppose next we can question whether the Sheriff (who said there were "500 rounds of ammunition" on set) knows the difference - he says it will take the FBI lab to ascertain that. In the meantime, I'll just leave this here:
"The AD shouted “cold gun,” a signal understood to those on set to mean the gun did not contain ammunition."
This particular gun contained two types of ammunition...
Note that the Sheriff included anything that could be put into a gun as "ammunition" (which is the only common sense thing to do). He says they have to figure out which was live, which might have been blanks, and which were dummies. Until that's done, it's ammunition to me. And the signal "Cold Gun" is commonly held to mean exactly what that sentence above says - regardless of how the clickbait headlines state it.
Moments Before ‘Rust’ Shooting, Alec Baldwin Was Told His Gun Did Not Contain Live Rounds, Police Say
And here's an article on wound morphology...from blanks:
Wound morphology in contact shots from blank cartridge handguns: a study on composite models - PubMed.
So I guess if there are blanks inside and the AD says "cold gun" but the scene calls for a close up shooting, then everything is supposed to fine. Starter pistols have killed people - albeit always close up (but take a look at the pictures of "Rust" where they were rehearsing - they were close up - and even if it had been a blank, Halyna could have lost an eye or needed plastic surgery...
