armed robbery query

[Alpo]

If you are not armed, but you make the victim think You are - like the old stick your hand in your coat pocket with your finger sticking out so they think you've got a gun - is that still armed robbery?

 

Seems like I read it was once upon a time.

 

The things that make you think things. I was drying the dishes, and as I was drying the silverware I had a flashback of a old Happy Day episode where nobody was home but Richie Ralph and Potsie, and a burglar shows up. He's going to steal the silver, and Richie tells him that it's never been used. "Mom says it's too good." He wants to know what they use for Christmas dinner and Richie says they use the good stainless steel.

 

The burglar has the boys behaving because they think he has a gun and they're afraid of getting shot. At the end of the episode we find out he did not have a gun.

 

Thus the question - since they thought he was armed is that still armed robbery?

[John Kloehr]

Yes. A pointed finger in the pocket counts as armed robbery. Same with a squirt gun in the pocket, or an unloaded or inoperable firearm. The pretense of being armed is the equivalent of being armed. While the exact verbiage of any state's law may vary, I don't think any state makes an exception or provide for a lesser penalty for anything short of an operable loaded firearm.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Yep, and if you get shot by the victim you will still be dead.