Dan Abrams interviewed professional Hollywood armorer Mike Tristano about the tragic death on the set of an Alec Baldwin film, and said it’s hard to see how the gun fired by Baldwin could have had anything other than live, real ammunition in it.

“If it was a blank, it would not have killed her,” Tristano said.

Tristano appeared on The Dan Abrams Show on Friday to talk about the death of the director of photography Halyna Hutchins, and injuring of director Joel Souza on the set of the movie “Rust” last week, which was filming in New Mexico.

Tristano described the difference between the types of prop guns that are on set, and the danger posed by the rounds that are in them. In the short clip from the longer interview, the experienced armorer summarizes exactly why he thinks it could not have been blank rounds in the gun.

Abrams asked Tristano to explain what a prop gun is, as compared to a real gun. “There’s a lot of different types of prop guns,” Tristano answered. “When we say prop guns we mean blank-firing guns or non-firing replica as they’re both called prop guns but they’re both very different obviously.”

Tristano explained there are many different types of guns that can be on a set, including “non-firing replica guns, which look good, but they don’t fire anything,” and “blank-fire only guns which are guns that are specifically made to only fire blanks, they cannot possibly fire any kind of live real ammunition.”

“Then the other type, which is actually the most common, is a real gun that has been modified to fire blanks,” he said.

“When you say a blank, what is a blank?” asked Abrams.

“A blank is basically a casing, like a bullet casing. A shell which is, in terms of the ones we use, it’s a crimped casing,” Tristano explained. “So if you had like a brass casing that you would put a bullet in it’s the same thing but it’s crimped at the end. So it only holds powder and it has a primer and there but there is no bullet head on it. So when it’s fired in the gun, the the the crimping opens up and that creates the flash that the gun gives off and in the case of a Western, which would be black powder, there will be smoke coming out as well but no projectile comes out of that gun when a blank is fired if professional movie blanks are used.”

Abrams asked Tristano what could possibly have been in the gun that it would actually kill someone. Tristano, noting this is almost unheard of on a movie set, said that in his opinion, based on what he knew about the situation at the time of this interview, it “couldn’t have been” a blank in the gun.

“I mean if you got hit, even with a wadded blank, a wad coming out of a blank, you know, you’re going to feel it but it’s certainly not going to kill you, unless it’s put right up against your chest or your head or something. I don’t know what the what the distance was that from that you know from from the gun that fired to the girl who was killed so there’s that’s a lot of there’s a lot of unknowns there,” he said. “But if it was a blank, it would not have killed her. She might have gotten a powder burn if it was a correct blank.”

“So, your assessment – again, based on limited information that we have – is the fact that Halyna Hutchins was killed and Joel Souza was hospitalized. In connection with this is, your belief is that this may not have actually been blanks that were in there,” summarized Abrams.

“I don’t think so,” Tristano confirmed. “I don’t see how a blank could do that much damage.”

“It would be a live round that would have done that. And how a live round gets on a movie set – That’s unheard of, too, to be honest,” he added. “But it depends on on who’s in charge of the guns. That’s the person to really look at. I mean, not Mr. Baldwin.”

Listen to the clip above, courtesy of the Dan Abrams Show on SiriusXM.

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