Bad press, or rather in this case, a bit misinformed press is still good press.

There is still a danger though, or maybe it is just more of an inconvenience. If you ever watch BTS footage of gunfights being filmed (the gunfight from Heat springs to mind) you will quite often see the cameramen wearing face shields for this exact reason, or even having big Lexan shields built around the camers or held by extra crew members.

In the TV series Stargate SG1 the main weapon they used was originally MP5s, but they switched to P90s. Although I doubt that it was the inciting reason (more likely aesthetics and "cool" factor) if you watch/listen to the behind the scenes stuff or commentaries the producers and actors say that the fact that the P90 ejects downwards was a massive bonus. In fact, there were scenes that they were only able to shoot in a particular way because of this aspect of the weapon (e.g. several characters firing there guns in a narrow hallway in both directions).

Usually no armorer will hand a live gun to a felon. Those guys should have their felonies expunged or pardoned. But there are times when production companies actually 'break the law' Doh!

When Ironman was being filmed, there is a deleted scene where Tony Stark picked up an Air Force M4 and fires it over the hood of a Humvee at his attackers (and eventual kidnappers). The production wanted Robert Downey Jr. to handle the live gun, but the armorer (correctly) refused, being that Downey had not has his inability to handle a gun dismissed (on paper) yet. So the scene where he's firing, he's holding an airsoft gun.

Downey's felony convictions were in 1999 and he wasn't pardoned until December 24th, 2015. So technically any film he did between 1999 and 2015, the productions violated federal law if they handed him a live gun. Oops! But Hollywood productions are notoriously unconcerned with firearms laws. They just expect armorers to break the law, being that Hollywood bigwigs rarely if ever fights against gun control laws in California that actually HURT the film industry.

Well, Wahlberg definitely hasn't been pardoned yet, given the recent publicity regarding his pursuit of one. This makes the Lone Survivor deal really odd, paying money to show off certain firearms in the hands of someone who shouldn't be handling guns.

I'm not saying there's no danger, but to my knowledge no one has ever died because an empty casing bounced off their face.

From what I have read he isn't actually a felon due to the fact that the crime was committed in Massachusetts and his sentence wasn't long enough for that state to class him as a "felon".

Sure, nobody is ever going to die from an ejected case, but it would still be dangerous if you got hit in the eye by one and could cause some nasty damage. I think it is more of a convenience thing though, it is a lot harder for a cameraman to get a the proper shot if he has his eyes closed because he has brass flaying at his face.

So....

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Zodiac

Tropic Thunder "Lead Farmer" scene should be a highlight

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows

and

Iron Man 3 though he was holding a Mac-10 Non gun at one point

Wow, if those were real guns, how many violations is that for RDJ?

I though guns that were permanently adapted for blanks weren't legally considered real firearms? I've seen numerous ads in gun magazines advertising blank guns for sale making that claim.

Those blank fire guns you see for sale are guns designed from the ground up as non guns (they're called BFONG) Blank Fire Only Non Gun. It takes a good bit of clever engineering (like having the rounds load in backwards and the front flash is the back flash from a round firing in the wrong direction) in order for ATF to NOT consider those to be guns. Those are NOT usually used in movies. The vast majority of what we use are blank adapted LIVE guns. They're more reliable, they put out the big fireball in front, and they're better made and don't use overly soft metals in their constructions.