COLUMBIA, S.C. - Investigators have swarmed a prison near Fairfax to figure out who shot two inmates this weekend and how someone got a weapon inside.

But so far, there are more questions than answers.

No suspects have emerged and prison officials still haven't found the weapon even though the Allendale Correctional Institution has been on lockdown since the shooting around supper time Sunday, Corrections Inspector General Charles Sheppard said.

"We've got a bunch of investigators down there interviewing everybody and his brother," Sheppard said Tuesday afternoon.

Inmates Dean Ford and George Brown were shot as they sat in an open cell at the medium security facility by an inmate who pulled his shirt over his head, Sheppard said.

"One of them was shot in the arm, the other was shot in the upper chest. Nothing life-threatening," Sheppard said.

The weapon used fired a small projectile that appeared to be a regular bullet. But Sheppard said investigators are not sure if the inmate fired an actual gun, or something made by the prisoner himself.

"Offenders or inmates can be fairly resourceful and they do have quite a bit of idle time," said Joe Weedon, spokesman for the American Correctional Association, a trade group represents correctional professionals.

The gun probably will be found because investigators can keep inmates locked down as long as they like, Weedon said.

Most prisons do not allow guards or anyone else, including visiting police officers to carry guns inside the facility. That eliminates the chance of weapons getting into the wrong hands.

So finding any kind of gun inside prison walls is a very dangerous event. "I have not heard of another incident like this in several years," Weedon said.

Both Bill Leake, who ran the state's prisons from 1968 to 1987 and Doug Catoe, who was Corrections director from 1999 to 2001, told The State newspaper they can't recall an inmate shooting a fellow prisoner in their 60 years combined working in South Carolina prisons.

And the Sunday incident comes just more than a week after an inmate at the state's most secure prison managed to get to the roof before he was captured.

Senate Corrections and Penology Committee Chairman Mike Fair, R-Greenville, told The Greenville News the inmate had escaped prison twice before he was sent to the "supermax" facility at Kirkland Correctional Institution in Columbia.

Corrections Director Jon Ozmint has refused to identify the inmate.

He blamed the escape attempt on low staffing, which has been a problem for years because of budget cuts. South Carolina has one guard for every nine inmates, which is one of the lowest rates in the nation, Ozmint has said.

Ozmint refused to talk about the inmate shooting Monday night and responded to an e-mail request Tuesday for an interview with an e-mail statement from his assistant that simply said "still under investigation."

Despite the problems, most members of the Senate's prisons committee still support Ozmint, Sen. Kay Patterson, D-Columbia, said.

"You can't put that at the feet of Ozmint," Patterson said. "I know the buck has to stop somewhere, but it seems to me it should stop at the feet of the General Assembly. We haven't given the prisons enough money."