This story turned out exactly the way it should have – with the clerk laughing in the thief’s face. The crazy thing about it is that it could have gone differently. If the clerk has known less about guns and was more easily intimidated, then the clerk might have fallen for the ruse and assumed that it was a real firearm.

This illustrates the importance of general gun knowledge. People tend to fear what they don’t understand, and that’s especially true in the world of firearms. Based on the evidence, it seems that the robber was relying on the clerk being ignorant of guns.