Alec Baldwin Shooting

[Fireball]

I watched MythBusters, and can assure you that they've come close to and/or received physical injuries. They are prop guys, not scientists or engineers. One example of injuries is the time they heated jawbreaker candy in a microwave to see if it would explode. They took the door off the microwave oven, heated the jawbreaker, and, indeed, it exploded. Chunks of hot candy struck them, and if some had hit them in the eyes, they would have potentially been blinded. I quit watching after seeing a ton of stupid mistakes, some with safety, some with science, some unlawful. That show is entertainment, which always crosses the line.

I was wondering specifically about firearms or explosives and I don't remember ever reading about any serious injuries due to that.  They took extreme cautions as I remember, at least what was shown on TV.  I have no way of knowing what wasn't shown.

They were very careful to not declare that their "experiments" were scientific on many occasions.  It was entertainment, but certainly far more intelligent than most.  They did approach a lot of the myths from a scientific perspective, as in testing as many angles of a myth as they could think of, but the experiments they conducted often involved unnecessary extremes and diversions that wouldn't be described as scientific at all.  The debates about their work were equally extreme.

I would like to know what they did that was unlawful, though.

One that springs to mind is the episode where they "investigated" the strength of RATO packs on aircraft. The found a guy who was willing to provide them with rockets strapped onto the roof of a mid-'60s Chevrolet to help it accelerate on the course they chose. Supplying rockets for that sort of thing is unlawful. I'm surprised that charges weren't filed. As a member of the National Association of Rocketry in years past, anyone storing over some amount of propellant was required to have a Low Explosives Users Permit. That BATFE ruling was eventually struck down because the particular propellant to be controlled was APCP, which the used grain size was far below the detonation size of about 1000 pounds. One has to qualify for use of rocket propellant on a three-level requirement for the amount of propellant used. The guy skated around those rules by using experimental fuel. Those guys took their, and the people around them, lives in their own hands.