Robbers used musket

Now these are some classy robbers. On Saturday, two young fellows in St. John's, Newfoundland attempted to rob a Super 8 Motel using a musket. They split before getting their loot. "Musket used in St. John's motel robbery"

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Anonymous

Lord Tunderin’ Jesus almighty!
A.Lwin

A couple of years ago some robbers in the UK used replica Japanese swords to commit crimes and a law was passed to ban ownership of Japanese style swords unless for martial arts practice.

So now are they going to make a law banning muskets?
Mister44

I would hate to be in that situation. I don’t know if I could grab it away when laughing so hard.
mdh

they had to go catch their blunderbuss
- SonOfSamSeaborn
  
  zing!
Anonymous

Fires a warning shot into the roof. “We’re robbing the place.”

“Err, gives us a couple of minutes to reload.”
urbanhick

Hmm. If these jokers couldn’t get their hands on a real gun, it looks as if Canada’s gun control laws are working. Newfoundland has virtually NO gun crime. Up until recently, the St. John’s city police didn’t even carry guns. I lived there for a few years back in the early 90s, and it was a trip to see cops walking around w/o the standard-issue cannon on their belts. And what do you know? The rate of police deaths was among the lowest in North America.
- Anonymous
  
  I’m just going to guess the drastically different police death rate is the result of a society-wide difference between Canada and the USA, and a difference in the perspective everyone in each country has regarding criminals and weapon ownership, not simply the result of police going gunless. So in other words, to have things in the USA like Canada, we need to do a hell of a lot more than just take guns away from the cops and citizens (either group potentially using said weapons to hurt/kill people, or not, with said potential hurting/killing being licit/illicit).
  
  One way to start is to encourage thoughtful, rational thinking in everyone, in all walks of society, the rich and poor, the purportedly-important/unimportant, etc., and get as much of society involved in getting things where absolutely everyone wants them to be (“everyone” includes people outside the USA too, by the way; we’re in a global neighborhood now, after all, and we all know the importance of treating our neighbors nicely, and them doing the very same).
- Mister44
  
  No – I think they are just idiots. An airsoft pistol, water pistol, or pellet gun would make a bigger impact than a musket.
  
  Thought it IS entirely possible these two were time travelers from the early 1800s, and they were trying to secure funds with what they had on them.
paulj

No audio? I’d imagine they announced themselves with “Stand and deliver! Hand over all the lupins you’ve got!” With no lupins to be had, they left empty-handed.
Ugly Canuck

Actual musketeers, don’t cha know.
Anonymous

The musket’s a fake.
Antinous / Moderator

The chances that these are my distant cousins is higher than I should probably admit. My grandparents were Newfs and some of my relatives still have ancestral muskets.
Antinous / Moderator

Oh, and don’t turn this into a big fight about guns. Puns, on the other hand….
- Jimbo
  
  If puns are outlawed, then only the outlaws will be funny.
cosmorphis

I’m thinking that musket is worth more than anything they could get out of a Super 8 Motel …
tw15

This looks Shopped. I can tell from some of the powder and and from seeing quite a few highwaymen in my time.
dragonfrog

No bayonet. That’s just poor planning.
Anonymous

It looks like a toy musket to me. The barrel bands are goofy, and the barrel itself is far too slim in profile.

At least they took the flourescent orange cap off of the muzzle.
Anonymous

The time-traveller theory might explain why they left lootless: pieces of paper with some woman’s picture on ‘em might not correspond to their idea of money. Gold, silver or beaver pelts would be what they were looking for.
- Mister44
  
  The more you think about it, the more sense it makes.
- oheso
  
  beaver pelts would be what they were looking for
  
  The story says one was 5 feet tall and the other 5 feet 4. I’m thinking that hunting for beaver pelts is probably pretty high on their list.
  
  Wait … I’ve wandered over from Tom the Dancing bug …
ackpht

When muskets are outlawed, only outlaws will have muskets.

I think if the clerks had simply crouched behind the counter there would have been no way to point the weapon at them.
Anonymous

I’m pretty sure that’s a black powder rifle, not a musket; somewhat easier to re-load, and plenty dangerous. Lots of people hunt deer with them.

Apologies for sounding like Dwight Schrute.
bugmaker

Musket! ….havin a time!
bugmaker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQS1Rwo5vp0
Anonymous

Are they filming a new season of Trailer Park Boys?
Prufrock451

“I’m after usin the loot frim this scoo-are to bai-eee a twelf-pounder smoothbore cannin ta take doo-an the bahnk doo-an too-an.”
VICTOR JIMENEZ

Then, they proceeded to flee in their steam powered car at a whooping 6 mph.

The Anachronistic Brothers scored another felony!
Matt Staggs

As I was going over the far famed Canadian mountains
I saw a Super Eight and the money they was counting.
I first produced my pistol, and then produced my rapier.
Said stand and deliver, for I am a bold deceiver.
Mister44

I think this is more serious than we thought. After some research, I think they may have been out of work Tusken Raiders. The economy has hit us all hard, especially illegal aliens.

http://i714.photobucket.com/albums/ww145/G-edi/TuskenRaider151109/TuskenBucketRifleFront001.jpg

They better beef up security. They scare easily, but they’ll be back, and in greater numbers.
Brett Myers

A couple meters of metal tubing hot glued onto an old table leg does NOT make this STEAMPUNK!
hongaku

Did they stare down the barrel and note the lack of rifling to determine it was a musket? “Musket” has a specific meaning after all (hint: it doesn’t have a rifled barrel or else it would be a rifle…).
Anonymous

I’d feel safer with a chicken drumstick.
Anonymous

Percival Dunwoody, is that you?!
RenaldoSugarbush

It’s official, Canadians are adorable
Regulas

KaBlaamooooo!!!!!!!!
Anonymous

AFAIK, black powder muzzle-loaders are obtainable in Canada without a possession/acquisition license. They’re using the best gun they can legally obtain.
W. James Au

How many other muggings have been attempted with weapons that were so obscure or complex as to cause total cognitive dissonance on the part of the victim, where they’re not even sure what the exact threat is? Mugging with nunchucks? Hunting falcon? David and Goliath-era slingshot? Guillotine? Tesla coil?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Crossbow robbery in UK
  
  UK Crossbow Cannibal killer
  
  Canadian crossbow patricide
  - mdh
    
    You forgot the ultimate example – Bat’leth.
Anonymous

No it was because they showed “Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” on TV the other night.
retrojoe

It is very clearly a toy “musket” not a real (antique or modern) firearms.

Point of fact: The term “musket” is a generic term for a style of military firearm and can be applied to more modern repeating rifles. The U.S. issued musket length/style Krag repeating rifles until about 1905.
andyhavens

Robbing someone with a musket is a breech of etiquette.
SonOfSamSeaborn

I love the way so many robbers fail to plan their face masking strategy in advance, and end up having to use one arm to keep something over their face (like the guy on the right). If you watch again and keep an eye on the guy on the left, his no-hands-required mask just falls off as if elasticated, clearly showing his face, and he has to pull it back up before leaving.

Oh yeah, and MUSKET
- Michael Smith
  
  I love the way so many robbers fail to plan their face masking strategy in advance
  
  You must mean this guy.
  - SonOfSamSeaborn
    
    Well that was bizarre. Fifty dollar!
Anonymous

What people seem to not be getting is the punch-line! The reason they walked out with no cash is because the musket was the sorriest looking fake on the face of the planet. I’m from Newfoundland, it looked nothing like a musket – or any other gun for that matter. It was literally hunks of wood duct-taped together, with one end slightly curved, and a piece of a metal pipe and end of a wooden dowel sticking out of the top. Look it up on CBC news, there are better pictures of the gun in police custody.
Chrissrkay

This actually happened down the road from my home. It’s a bit of a known neighborhood for petty crimes.Â

The “musket” in question is actually a home made replica, which was posted by a local news station hereÂ http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/canada/story/2010/12/23/nl-musket-fake-123.html

Im unsure if any arrests have been made as of yet.Â
Napalm Dog

Maybe they were shooting a scene for a Guy Ritchie movie…
Anonymous

I saw this on my local newscast a little while ago, I live in Newfoundland, and sadly the musket wasn’t even a real gun…

It was a roughly shaped stock from wood with some trimmings and metal strapping for effect to make it look like a musket or black-powder rifle. Both guys were caught, but the smaller guy did put up a fight!
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Anon #43:
  
  Actual fake musketeers, don’t cha know.
strangefriend

They should have used one of these pocket pistols.
Anonymous

A blast from the past!