Scott Reeder, the head of props on “Walker,” the TV revival about a gun-toting Texas Ranger, was planning for a scene in which a woman points a revolver at a captive when a new set of orders arrived: real guns would no longer be used in the production.

It was shortly after a cinematographer had been fatally shot on the set of the film “Rust” in New Mexico, when a gun Alec Baldwin had been rehearsing with fired a live bullet. The mood around guns on the “Walker” set had become tentative, and its producers had decided that they would stop using real firearms — which they, like many other productions, had selectively used for some close-ups and on a few occasions for blank fire — and would start relying fully on replica guns, including rubber guns and gas-powered guns such as Airsofts.

“I took any conventional weapon that we had off the prop truck and locked it in the safe,” Reeder recalled.

In the two years since the “Rust” shooting took the life of the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, a divide has emerged in Hollywood over the use of real firearms on film and TV sets. Some productions, like “Walker,” have moved to ban them, leaning more heavily on special effects that replicate the flashes and bangs of gunfire. Many other productions continue to use them — maintaining that real guns look more convincing and elicit more authentic reactions from actors when used to fire blanks, and arguing that the “Rust” tragedy was an anomaly that could have been avoided if the production had followed standard safety protocols.

“Using blank fire enhances the story’s narrative; it provides realism and gives the actors something to respond to,” said John Navarro, a veteran armorer who oversaw blank fire in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” “And if used properly, it’s utterly safe.”