Live ammo fired in re-enactment,

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Ozzieman

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Live ammo fired in re-enactment, 3 tourists hurt at Old West Show in South Dakota.
Associated Press: Chet Brokaw.
I read this news story in our local toilet paper this morning. This is the same paper that feels that the Brady group has done so much for our society. :barf:
This was written in a very negative manner toward all gun owners.
With that said, how stupid can someone be to bring live ammo to a show that’s run several times a week in a tourist town?
 
A Google search on "wild west gun show live ammo" returned 35 Google pages of news articles on this before the subject returned any other hits.

To say that the media is "on this" is an understatement.

I am looking forward to hearing the story on how this happened. It pretty much had to be: "Forgot I had used the same gun for target shooting and left live ammo in it." or "I loaded blanks. How did live ammo get in there?"

In either event, this could be the end of wild-west shoot-em-up gun shows.

Certainly, any such show should have a last-minute cross-check of ammunition in which each participant checks his own and everyone else's gun for blanks. That apparently did not happen here.

I thought I saw a similar story on this line last week also, but with less press. Am I drinking cheap wine or just getting alzheimer's?
 
That is how actor Brandon Lee got killed here in Wilmington back in 1992 or so. One of my buddies was the special effects director for that film. I can't remember exactly, but it seems like there was a suib load left in the barrel. No one miraculously was charged.
 
I believe Brandon Lee was killed by a blank - he erroneuosly thought that blanks are completely harmless and held the gun to his head and fired.

That is what I recall.
 
bad, bad news, and a tragedy. It is also 'sexy' from a news standpoint. When a whole family got killed by a hibachi (O2 deprivation) they were using for heat in the winter a while back, you'd think nobody cared; it was a second page story for a day or so. To me it is obvious that pain and suffering is not what's important in any of these awful things, be it from a car crash, a gin incident or a fire- it's the chance to effect people's thinking and derive power from the situation. I hope those folks that got hurt end up OK :(
 
he erroneuosly thought that blanks are completely harmless and held the gun to his head and fired.
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Not true - he was killed by a "blank" round. The revolver had a bullet lodged in the barrel from previous scene. The revolver had cartridges where the powder was pulled and the bullet re-inserted so when looking at the revolver from the front - you would see the "bullet" in the cylinders. The primers were not pulled and someone fired the gun - and the bullet lodged in the barrel. When pistol was later used in a scene - the blank cartridge had sufficient energy to propel the stuck round into Brandon Lee's abdomen....
 
I couldn't figure out who you meant, and after in bugging me for an hour or so I think you mean John Eric Hexum- accidentally killed himself because he didn't know blanks could kill you and he was goofing on playing Russian roulette- and lost

I had to search under actors who accidentally died in the '80s. I vaguely recalled some new TV show getting cancelled because of an actor's death and the name was odd enough to stick in my head Exum, Hexum, you were pretty close! Didn't know the guy had stuck a .44 to his temple and yanked the trigger though...un-smart move
 
The wikipedia article on Hexum was quite interesting. The most interesting part is how his body helped many many people after the fact.
 
I read this news story in our local toilet paper this morning. This is the same paper that feels that the Brady group has done so much for our society.
This was written in a very negative manner toward all gun owners.
With that said, how stupid can someone be to bring live ammo to a show that’s run several times a week in a tourist town?
Click to expand...

Maybe you could point out where the paper is doing gun owners wrong?

All in all, aside from the absolute flagarant safety violation by the re-enactor, this does seem to be a terrible story. They didn't go into detail about the possibly crippling injuries that could dramatically change the lives of two of the victims.
 
Reenactors are usually very careful although I have to say that Civil War seem to be the worst by far -- probably just due to the odds based on popularity. But they seem not to be familiar enough with arms to understand what they are really checking often, by and large.

I've seen in Rev. War they don't push paper down the barrel or even draw their ramrods anymore. They also DOUBLE check each other's cartridges: before tacticals, first the line faces left and they check the box in front, then they about-face and check a cartridge in the box NOW in front of them -- and these are in addition to the NCO's inspection!
 
these actor shows are well regulated by an insurance company last i checked. not supposed to be live ammunition at all. just blanks. ideally in special blank guns.


you cant solely blame the actor with live ammunition, you have to blame the crowd. everybody violated the ancient "dont stand in front of a gun" "if it comes out of a barrel it can screw ya up"
 
I really hate when stuff like this happens - the media has a hay day with it and it stirs up the hoplophobic ideology.

You are right - it really is a non-story. Probably somewhere in the country more people were injured in a jet-ski incident then were injured at this show, but it's not news. Probably on the same day more people were injured nationwide with pnuematic nailers but that's not news worthy.
 
I've seen in Rev. War they don't push paper down the barrel or even draw their ramrods anymore. They also DOUBLE check each other's cartridges: before tacticals, first the line faces left and they check the box in front, then they about-face and check a cartridge in the box NOW in front of them -- and these are in addition to the NCO's inspection!
Click to expand...

Sorry, but I had to laugh at reading your post, the part about the NCO's inspection...as if the people involved had any sort of real ranks. Yeah, I know they have some sort of system, but it is sort of meaningless to call somebody a given rank as if that person actually has some sort of actual responsibility, especially when so many of the reenactors haven't even been in the military. I say this NOT because of your post, but because a buddy of mine is a reenactor who took it all very seriously, especially his rank and firepower. He does mostly Civil War and WWII stuff. I would get a kick when he would talk about how much firepower they had, which is rather ironic when they didn't have any shot or actual ammunition. He never understood that a Ma Deuce with blanks isn't actually firepower, but an expensive noise maker.

Anyway, he used to send me an article every year or two where reenactors had gotten shot. I don't recall him ever sending any incidents of where spectators got shot. However, he had explained that many groups had gone to intentionally not pointing weapons directly at one another so as to avoid reenactors harming one another, hence maybe why the three folks were hurt in the OP? He also explained that many who got shot were not shot with actual slugs in the Civil War reenactments, but by a lead ring that could sometimes build up inside of the barrel and if the gun wasn't properly cleaned, then the buildup would break free as an irregular projectile. Maybe somebody else could shed light on this as I don't do muzzleloading.
 
Growing up we had an old man from "Kentuckee" who shot a lot of black powder guns, who loved to have us kids around (Parents were tolerated). He would go on and on about safety and how dangerous it was to be a fool. I asked him once about these re-enactments and if he ever participated in them. He said he did not and what part of being a fool I thought he was. (That old man was a hero of mine, all of the kids called him Mr. Jimmy.)

He had this hang-up about pointing rifles at things you were not going to kill.

I went to one civil war re-enactment back in 1995 and to be honest, it scared the heck out of me. Like Double Naught Spy said, I guess there was some kind of "Chain of Command", but it looked more confused than someone trying to find a contact in a bucket of snot. Firearms were handled in an unsafe manner every where I looked (Not just on the battle field). I hope it was only this one group and is not indicative of the entire re-enactment community.
 
I can't help thinking that this may be a set up.

Anti gunner slips in some live ammo to mke guns and thier owners look bad.

The results cause the antis to rejoyce.
 
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