Man in the US robs a supermarket with a modified Nintendo lightgun

A 25-year-old man attacked a supermarket with this “weapon”. (Source: Nintendo)

In the days of tube televisions, light guns were very popular in combination with consoles. Atari had them, Sega and of course Nintendo – even as one of the first.

In the mid 80s was Nintendo zap many consoles, along with the game Duck Hunt, in which – as the name suggests – you hunted ducks. To do this, the toy pistol was aimed at the screen and the fowl was shot down by light reflections.

Weapon misused

In South Carolina, police arrested a 25-year-old man for robbing a small supermarket with a plastic pistol, Engadget reports. With a mask, wig, hoodie and the zapper, he stole $300.

Police allege the suspect waved the fake gun in front of an employee and demanded money from the register. Authorities found him in a parking lot with the fake handgun down his pants.

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Normally, the Nintendo Zappers are white and gray or, as our picture shows, gray and orange. To make it harder to tell the toy from a real gun, the suspect spray-painted it black.

It didn’t help him: The zapper was eventually identified as a toy and the perpetrator, who was almost 15 years younger than his fake gun, was arrested.

No trivial offense

Fake pistols like the lightgun or real-looking airsoft guns are not uncommonly used in crimes in the United States. As early as 1990, an American study showed that more than 15 percent of all robberies in the USA were carried out with the wrong weapons.

In most parts of the country, crimes committed with counterfeit guns are treated the same as real guns. Reason: The danger is just as real for the victims, whether the weapon is real or not.

Just recently we reported on a criminal who will owe Nintendo until the end of his life:

The gun laws in the USA are comparatively lax, which is why the country is repeatedly criticized. Luckily, the suspect couldn’t actually hurt anyone with his zapper. Did you also own Nintendo’s light gun back then and went virtually duck hunting? Is there perhaps still a zapper somewhere in your attic?