The crew was target shooting with the guns during off periods, using real ammo.
But yeah, early on I thought, “If he wanted to kill this lady, this was a good plan.”
I think he was being a smart-ass and was going to scare her, the crew, or whoever by firing what he assumed was a blank.
Maybe, but pointing a gun that is capable of firing real bullets at another person is something that all of us should learn not to do from a very early age. Even if you feel you are 100% confident the gun is unloaded.
I mentioned here before that I never bought cap guns or any other kind of toy gun for my children when they were small. Not that I'm anti-gun, but because I don't want bad habits to form. There should be nothing "fun" about pointing a gun at anybody, even if it's a cap gun. I would much rather get my children a BB gun and teach them to handle it properly from the beginning.
When I was in the Marines, it was ingrained in us to never point a gun at something unless we planned to kill it. Even earlier, in the Boy Scouts, we learned not to ever point a gun at somebody.
It just seems so odd that a middle aged man would do something so stupid and reckless.