Sorry I hear what you are saying and still disagree and do not think that is a fair and just comparison.*
Our discussion has proven to be a clash of intuitions. If nothing else, it is interesting to note this much. This has proven to be a juicy controversy.
And how many of us, if we were handed a gun by a designated professional would not trust them if they told us that something that they handed us was perfectly safe? The rules of gun safety cut against the grain of such common sense acceptance of expertise and responsibility. They instill a sort of procedural paranoia (check anyway and check again in a few minutes to be sure) which initially seems to be unfair and even irrational.
Take into account how many people are accidentally killed by gunfire on a movie set to how many car crash fatalities there are each year. 1 vs 38,000 that’s just the U.S this year.
You're being unfair here
in comparing a very narrow category to a broad category.
EX: Narrow = The number of people killed by "African Elephants" on movie sets (and only on movie sets!) does not really reflect the general threat posed by African Elephants.It does not really inform us why people are instructed to be careful around these animals.
African Elephants kill about 500 people a year, which coincidentally is about the number of people in the United States who are killed by negligent discharges.
We're already at a number 500 times greater than the one you have suggested by being more fair in our comparison.
And if you object to this ("I am only talking movie sets!"), then we must, in fairness, ONLY consider car accidents in a similarly narrow context (e.g., "I am only discussing deadly collisions that occurred as a result of a person fumbling to light a cigarette").
As you know, guns don't stop being guns just because they're on a movie set. The threat posed by guns is quite general. Thus your narrowing is not quite appropriate, is it?
And about as many people die from firearms (for any reason in any context) in the United States as die by cars (for any reason in any context). If you want to strip away the suicides, fine. That still leaves us with about 10,000 homicides a year.
And how many of these include mass shootings where a parent negligently failed to lock up their guns, allowing their teenage kid to go on a killing spree?
You are (there is no other way to put this, so apologies if this creates offense) incorrect in implying that guns are not dangerous or that (more specifically) they're not dangerous in the context of a movie set. On the contrary, they're very very dangerous (that's the point - they're supposed to be dangerous - they're designed to injure and kill).
This doesn’t make a point entirely and obviously what you are saying is true and should be just common sense for so many professions and everyone in general but we are talking about people pretending.. pretending to be someone they’re not, pretending to shoot a pretend gun.
At least that’s what I thought until today.
If it is a pretend gun, it is no big deal. Unfortunately, this world of illusions mixes rubber guns and blank guns and even real guns. It mixes actors (
who pretend to be someone else) with stunt doubles (
who pretend to be someone pretending to be someone else) with CGI pixel people (
who are pretending to be people!). There are so many layers of artifice in film production that any gun on a set is a rather dubious object, especially if there is a lot of hubbub going on from shot to shot. It's kind of amazing that their safety record has been this good.
I think I am OK with real guns in movies (e.g., for close up shots, for promotional materials, as a wall-hanger in a scene), but not with real guns pointed at real people--certainly not loaded with live ammo or even blanks. A deactivated "real gun" which cannot be made to fire by any casual monkey on the set is OK in my book. There are lots of deactivated real guns which "look the part."
I suppose that shooting a real gun loaded with blanks at a CGI alien is OK (i.e., no people cast or crew downrange) is fine, but that that must come with real gun training for the actors and safe handling by everyone. And even if that real gun is there to look convincing when it is shoved in to someone's face, it is necessary for anyone handling it to clear it, just in case. And this reveals a weak link in the "Safety Tzar" model of gun handling (it is only as good as the person who claims the gun is safe).