I’m no gun expert, but I was taught that one never points the barrel at anything, unless one plans to destroy that thing. Doesn’t matter whether the gun is loaded, unloaded, or shooting blanks. Assume that the weapon ‘could’ go off at anytime, so always be sure where you are pointing it.
Learned that in Boy Scouts, and from shooting the tip of my finger with a bee-bee pistol. The lesson was worth the pain.
Besides, don’t blanks have a paper wad that gets blown out at high speed?
“Besides, don’t blanks have a paper wad that gets blown out at high speed?”
Yes - or plastic ones. Every once in awhile some kid will goof off and pretend suicide - and I have heard of them accidently killing themselves when the wad goes through their skull.
From wikipedia:
On October 12, 1984, the cast and crew of Cover Up were filming the seventh episode of the series, “Golden Opportunity,” on Stage 17 of the 20th Century Fox lot. One of the scenes filmed that day called for Hexum’s character to load blanks into a .44 Magnum handgun.
When the scene did not play as the director wanted it to play in the master shot, there was a delay in filming. Hexum became restless and impatient during the delay and began playing around to lighten the mood. Apparently, he had unloaded all but one (blank) round, spun it, and in what would appear to be a game of Russian roulette, at 5:15 p.m., he put the revolver to his right temple and pulled the trigger.[6]
Hexum was apparently unaware that his actions were dangerous. Blanks use paper or plastic wadding to seal gun powder into the cartridge, and this wadding is propelled from the barrel of the gun with enough force to cause severe injury or death if the weapon is fired within a few inches of the body, especially if pointed at a particularly vulnerable spot, such as the temple or the eye.
Although the paper wadding in the blank that Hexum discharged did not penetrate his skull, the wad struck him in the temple with enough blunt force trauma to shatter a quarter-sized piece of his skull and propel the pieces into his brain, causing massive hemorrhaging.[1][7]
Lots of people have been killed or injured by "blanks". I would have beaten the crap out of him.