[Hugh R]

We use blanks all the time in the Film industry. The level of check and double check is rigorous. Blanks can certainly kill. Since a camera is two dimensional, you NEVER point a gun with blanks at another person, you fire to the side of them, the camera can't see the difference. When an actor fires a shotgun at a skeet range, it has blanks and a highly qualified skeet shooter is to his or her side off camera doing the actual work. In 25 years + in the film industry, I've never seen live ammo being used.

EDIT: they used some live shotgun ammo during the filming of "The Twilight Zone Movie" in which Vic Morrow and two Vietnamese kids were cut in half, by a helicopter blade, but that was before I joined the Industry and it was Warner Bros. not us. Changed the industry a whole lot.