NEW YORK—Despite concerns that the city would take their theatrical weapons through new gun laws, the movie industry can breathe a sigh of relief. The state will not take their assault rifles or high-capacity magazines.
The film industry gets its guns from prop gun dealers—usually warehouses with Mission Impossible-style rooms of walls covered with weapons. Some are modified to only fire blanks, while others are non-working replicas.
The Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act will ban assault weapons and clips that hold more than 10 rounds, and goes into effect on January 15, 2014.
New York City is promoting itself as the second Hollywood, trying to bring the film industry back to its roots in the East coast. Yet the SAFE Act stirred drama over whether the industry can shoot films requiring assault weapons and clips that go over new state limits.
Under the law, current owners of assault weapons, including prop guns, can keep their guns as long as they register them with State Police before April 15, 2014.
The way it will be handled is the city will not take any weapons used in movies as long as long as they have a legal prop gun dealer on set and they’re shooting blanks.
A source also told the Epoch Times that tweaks were made to the SAFE Act that exempt the film industry from the ban on 10-round clips and assault rifles.
“What we did was changed the definition of the assault weapon,” the source told Epoch Times.
NYC Film Industry Can Keep Its Prop Guns
Actor Harrison Ford runs from the wreckage of car while filming a scene from his new movie 'Hollywood Homicide' on Hollywood Boulevard on October 22, 2002 in Los Angeles, California. Prop guns used on movie sets will not be banned by a new gun law in New York, but they will be regulated. Ben-Ari Finegold/Getty Images
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