Luigi doesn’t like to get up early and go to work. He’d rather sleep late, then hang out with the boys all night. Of course his life-style requires financing, so Luigi takes up burglary, car theft, and robbery. The work is dangerous but the hours are good.

On this night, Luigi breaks into a suburban home. He finds sterling silverware, fifty dollars in cash, and a couple of guns.

Among the guns is a Colt .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol. The owner, a World War II veteran, carried that pistol ashore at Anzio, then up through Italy and on into Germany. The G.I. and his sidearm are part of American history. But they’re both getting old.

Back to the punk, Luigi. A few nights after the burglary, Luigi decides to use his newly acquired weapon to rob a store. It’s late and the clerk is alone. Luigi cleans out the cash register. Then he decides on a "no witness" policy and levels the .45 at the clerk. Instead of shooting, Luigi pistol whips the clerk and decides to shoot out the surveillance camera instead. He takes aim-squeezes the trigger-but there’s only a CLICK!

What Luigi doesn’t know is this gun hasn’t been fired since 1944. After such a long time ammunition loses much of its punch, causing what’s known as a "hang fire." A delayed action.

After the "click" Luigi looks directly down the barrel of the pistol, possibly thinking, "What the heck’s going on here?"

That’s about all the time it takes for the sluggish ammo to awaken from its near 60 year sleep and return to duty. First comes a half inch chunk of lead, followed immediately by a flash of hot gases.

The bullet, by the way, travels approximately 900 feet per second. Fast enough that Luigi never finds out why the gun didn’t fire.