Senseless Violins

A suave Stradivarius.

"What's in my violin case? Violence!"

— Crime City Jinx, League of Legends

For criminals there come times when a pistol just isn't big enough for the job. However, transporting heavier firepower in a manner that doesn't immediately attract the attention of civilians or the police can be a problem.

Enter the musical instrument case. The wide range of shapes and sizes of musical instruments means you can readily find a case for transporting any weapon you might want to conceal.

This one goes back at least as far as the Roaring Twenties when gangsters used violin and viola cases to transport Thompson submachine guns and sawed-off shotguns. With time more varied weapons have been concealed in this manner up to heavy machine guns and rocket launchers. Even today specialized cases for transporting rifles and pistols can look like musical instrument cases.

This has been done so much that nowadays when some people see a violin case, they assume it contains firearms. Ironically, though, this trope has been Truth in Television, as nobody raised an eyebrow when Steven P. Kazmierczak smuggled a pair of shotguns inside the Northern Illinois University with a guitar case (see "Real Life" section).

Not to be confused with the Musical Assassin, who actually uses an instrument to kill instead of hiding a gun — unless, of course, he pulls the instrument out of the case and proceeds to kick ass like a maestro. Alternatively, you could have an Instrument of Murder, where the instrument doubles as a weapon.

Verges on Dead Horse territory these days, as it's subverted as often as it's played straight.

Also not to be confused with "Psycho" Strings.

See also Briefcase Blaster when the weapon is concealed in a briefcase.

Note: The title is a play on the phrase "senseless violence".

---

Examples

Anime & Manga

• In Baccano!, a terrorist group called the Lemures boards a train disguised as a professional orchestra, with many stringed instrument cases to house their weapons. This may be a point of historical accuracy, seeing as the story takes place during the American Prohibition Era. There is Lampshade Hanging: Ladd and his gang know immediately that they are killers, and the Lemures act so overtly threatening to the railroad staff, that it isn't much of a disguise.
• Blood+: Hagi carries around Saya's sword in his cello case (along with an actual cello). He gets it out, throws it to her... then proceeds to teleport over to some random enemy and beat the living hell out of them with a cello case as tall as he is. It also makes a nifty shield and a remarkable projectile. The case and the cello both apparently are remarkably durable, seeing as they take no damage from the extreme abuse Hagi puts them through.
• In Blue Seed, Kome uses a cello case to transport her rocket launcher.
• Cat Planet Cuties: Tyke Bomb Aoi keeps her arsenal in a cello case.
• Subverted in Detective School Q. A murdering musician is actually confirmed to be a serial killer after the DDS people see that his violin case is empty; he only brought the case to pose as innocent, not wanting the violin to get damaged under the rainy weather.
• Devil May Cry: The Animated Series: Dante keeps his sword in a guitar case.
• Gunslinger Girl:
  • Henrietta uses a violin case to transport her signature weapon, the FN P90 (in fact her first on-screen killing involves her hitting a terrorist with the case hard enough to kill him before removing her submachine gun to kill the rest of the cell). Unlike most examples, however, sometimes the violin case actually does contain her violin.
  • Rico is carrying a flute case with a weapon when she meets Emilio; she gets rather flustered when he asks her to play the flute for him, and lies that she isn't very good at her instrument yet.
• Ikki Tousen's Ten'i carries a composite bow in a full-blown cello case—with a large blade that springs out the bottom, to boot.
• Ryuko Matoi, main protagonist of Kill la Kill, carries her weapon in a guitar case. Unusually, it's not a firearm but a giant half scissor.
• Madlax once stored a sniper rifle in a cello case.
• In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Mana brings along a guitar case for her Big Damn Heroes moment. True to form, she whips a pair of Desert Eagles out in a Shout-Out to Desperado, mentioned below.
• Samurai Champloo In the first part "Hellhounds for Hire" Jin is disguised as a woman carrying a biwa (a traditional Japanese instrument similar to a guitar). When asked to play a song on it, he briefly makes an inept effort to play before drawing his katana from the neck. He also happened to have smoke bombs hidden in the body of the instrument.
• In the Tokyo Ghoul Prequel Jack, Kishou Arima carries his Quinque in a modified guitar case while working undercover as an Ordinary High-School Student.

Card Games

• The Card Game Munchkin has a card "Doppelgangsters", which has a bonus against Bard characters. "No, the violin cases don't have violins in them."

Comic Books

• Scarface, the dummy of Batman foe the Ventriloquist, used to carry a miniature Tommy gun hidden inside a toy piano he carried under his arm, in a parody of the classic 'Tommy gun in a violin case'. (It is also a Stealth Pun on 'Chicago piano': a gangster-era slang term for a Tommy gun.)
• Batman: No Man's Land: Gotham is blocked off from the rest of the US and divided into territories controlled by gangs. Someone always seen with a "violin" case, rumored to have killed four dozen rival mobsters, walks through alone. Subverted surprisingly touchingly. He actually is carrying a violin in the case, and he's sought after because he's one of the only sources of music in the devastated city.
• Nextwave: Elsa Bloodstone keeps two Uzis and two shotguns in her guitar case she carries around.
• Nightwing villain Torque once checked into a motel carrying his tommy gun in a violin case. When the landlord told him not to play around there, Torque said "Don't give me a reason to."
• Subverted hilariously in one short story of Paperinik New Adventures: one of Angus's friends is the only gangster who keeps a violin in the case, but plays it so badly that Angus asks him to put in a machine gun like every other criminal.
• Inverted in an issue of The Simpsons comic book. Lisa goes with Bart and his friends to the mall with her saxophone, and one of Bart's friends nonchalantly asks why she's carrying a machine gun. Bart replies that she's just weird.
• Parodied many, many times in the Spirou & Fantasio adventure "Luna Fatale" which mostly takes place in New York City and plays on the Little Italia mafia/Chinatown triads stereotypes. All the mafiosi carry a violin case at one point or another, leading to many uncomfortable situations.
  • The story opens with a shoot-out between mafiosi: all of them have violin cases full of guns... except one, who opens his case to find a mandolin, as he had been off serenading a woman before meeting the others.
  • At one point, Spirou find himself in a restaurant owned by the American-Italian Mafia: in the background, a violin player opens his case, only to find a machine gun inside. In the end, he has to make do with a makeshift harmonica.
  • A dying elderly mafioso explains that he had been cheating on his wife with another woman. Cut to the elderly wife who heard his confession taking a rolling pin out of her violin case.
• Neil Gaiman's and Dave McKean's Violent Cases.

Comic Strips

• Parodied in The Far Side, where one strip shows a bunch of cavemen gangsters using violin cases to carry around their clubs.
• There was an old MAD or Cracked joke that inverted this, where a violin player took it out of what looked like a Tommy gun case.
• One Spy vs. Spy has the Black Spy open his violin case and produce ... a violin, which he proceeds to play so horrifically badly the White Spy is forced to flee in pain.
• There was an old caricature inspired by the Kennedy assassination. An (obvious) assassin with a guitar case enters a building. The police guarding check his case and make sure that he is carrying a real guitar (he is). So they let him through. He reaches the top of the building which overlooks the road where the president (in an open-topped car) is parading through the streets. The assassin picks up the guitar and, when the president's car is close enough, throws it at the president. He gets a hit.

Fan Works

• Averted in Not the intended use (Zantetsuken Reverse). Illegal gun owner Kazuya also has a violin case, but he doesn't hide his guns in the violin case because unlike real gun cases, it's not designed to contain accidental discharges. The violin case stores an Instrument of Murder.

Film — Animated

• The cartoon adaptation of Soul Music has two enforcers for the Musicians' Guild who carry clubs in instrument cases.

Film — Live-Action

• In Death to Smoochy, Buggy Ding Dong carries a rifle in a trombone case to murder the title character during his ice show.
• Robert Rodriguez's Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico feature an ex-musician turned deadly vigilante who carries a guitar case full of guns. The prequel to these two movies, El Mariachi, features a hitman who had a case much like this that accidentally ended up in the hands of the eponymous mariachi about halfway through the movie. Thus, the film manages to play the trope straight and subvert it at the same time.
  • In addition, in Desperado, Mariachi's two allies, Quino and Campa, used guitar cases that were converted to fire full-auto machine guns as well as one that contained a rocket launcher. Once Upon a Time In Mexico took this further with new allies Lorenzo and Fideo, one of whom used a guitar case built as a flamethrower, and the other of whom had his guitar case turned into a radio controlled bomb on wheels.
  • In Desperado, he went one better than just stuffing the guns in a guitar case, he had a mockup guitar with a false bottom that concealed a veritable arsenal. When he first showed up in the bar, everyone assumed he had a gun in the case and forced him to open it. He did and showed that "it's just a guitar"... unfortunately, the hidden catch wasn't very good, and the hidden lid opened and Hilarity Ensued.
  • Not to be outdone in Once upon a Time in Mexico, El hides a sawed off shotgun inside a guitar.
  • However, doubly subverted when they're entering the whereabouts of the President and the guards ask them to play their instruments. The Mole that got them in trembles insecurely for a couple of moments, while the boys actually play well, and he admits he didn't think they could play. One of them asks "Are you serious?"
• This happens in, of all movies, Duck Soup, with Groucho Marx doing the shooting! (During the war between Freedonia and Sylvania, Groucho and company are caught in a house between the front lines; after one particularly fierce attack, Groucho demands his "Stradivarius", intending on teaching the enemy to "fiddle with him"...)
• In the James Bond film The Living Daylights, Kara conceals a sniper rifle inside a cello case (it also comes in handy as a makeshift sled).
  • This is also the movie where Q creates the "Ghetto Blaster" — a rocket launcher that masquerades as a boom box. Q says "It's something we're making for the Americans."
• John Wick: Chapter 2 has a variant: An assassin goes undercover as a busker, then pulls a pistol out of the violin she was playing when her mark walks by.
• Played with in Kiler, where after crafting his "Killer" persona, Jerzy uses a violin case to... carry his groceries.
• In Robert Altman's Nashville, Kenny Fraiser's fiddle case holds a gun, which he uses to shoot Barbara Jean and Haven Hamilton.
• A variant in Predestination, where violins (called Field Kits) function as Time Travel devices.
• Subverted in The Punisher (2004). The assassin Harry Heck enters the diner where Frank Castle is eating, toting a guitar case, which he opens before an on-guard Castle to reveal... a guitar. He then plays a tune informing Castle that he's here to kill him. And it is AWESOME.
• At the beginning of Some Like It Hot, the struggling musicians look for work in a club run by gangsters. Seeing the instrument cases, the gangsters draw their guns and search the musicians — being very surprised to find out that the instrument cases contain musical instruments — and more surprised when real hitmen turn up moments later.
• In Star Trek: First Contact, Picard goes into a holodeck simulation of the 1920s specifically to borrow one character's Tommy gun. It's in a violin case, of course.
• Inverted in Water (1985), which opens with the Cascaran Liberation Front attacking a radio station using an Improvised Zipline onto the roof while holding camouflaged cases, which when opened turn out to contain an electric guitar and keyboard. The Singing Rebel then proceeds via song to call on the people of Cascara to rise up against their British oppressors. Everyone ignores him, largely because he's a Dreadful Musician.

Jokes

• There's an old joke about a student at a music academy opening up his violin case and finding an assault rifle. When asked what's so funny, he says: "It's my old man. He's probably at the bank right now, playing my violin."
• One of many, many jokes directed against violas:
  Why are people always nervous when they see someone bring a violin case into a bank?
  Because they're afraid it's holding an assault rifle and they're going to use it.
  Why are people always nervous when they see someone bring a viola case into a bank?
  Because they're afraid it's holding a viola and they're going to use it.
• Q: What were the Chicago mobster's last words? A: "Who put that violin in my violin case?"

Literature

• In one Clue book, the guests observe a violin case, and Professor Plum likens it to the kind gangsters carry their guns in. It actually contains an antique violin that becomes the subject of the story's heist, but Mr. Boddy is such a Dreadful Musician that bullets may be less painful.
• Played straight in The Day of the Jackal in which the eponymous assassin has a sniper's rifle disguised as a war veterans' crutch.
• Doc Savage: In The Annihilist, the sniper Frightful conceals his gun inside a trombone case.
• Doc Sidhe: The first attack by the bad guys on Doc's headquarters was made by thugs dressed as musicians and carrying instrument cases.
• In the James Bond short story "The Living Daylights", "Trigger" stores her AK-47 in a cello case.
• The Laundry Files by Charles Stross has a Double Subversion: the protagonist's girlfriend Mo is established as a tough customer, and always carries a violin case with her. When she's forced to open it at customs, it actually contains a violin—and she thinks to herself that it's a good thing they don't ask her to play it.
• Parker: In The Outfit, two of the gang who knock over the Outfit's number-running operation are dressed as musicians and carrying burp guns hidden in trombone cases.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Another subversion from the British novel series: the rat mafia at one point has Sonic and Tails tied up against a wall while some of their members take out violin cases, "but they needn't have worried; the rats actually played their instruments quite well".

Live-Action TV

• A season 2 episode of 1000 Ways to Die had a CIA agent pose as a violinist in order to kill a terrorist by frying his brain with a laser that was hidden in her case.
• Subverted on an episode of Batman (1966) featuring Shelley Winters as Ma Parker. Ma and her kids robbed a bank. During the getaway, Batman and Robin captured one of her sons, who was carrying a violin case which contained ... a violin. He said that Ma wanted him to take lessons.
• Subversion and Inversion in a classic sketch of The Benny Hill Show. Mobsters put guns in instrument case, mix up case with a musician's, pull out violin in front of bank... and then proceed to play the instrument and dance for tips...
• Taken one step further in an episode of Bergerac, where a character actually conceals a Skorpion sub machine gun inside a violin.
• The Goodies
  • In "Give Police a Chance", the Goodies try robbing a bank and use the above-mentioned gag of playing a violin for tips. After passing the hat around, they decide it's not enough and resort to the traditional method of robbery.
  • In "The Goodies Rule — OK?", there's a prohibition on comedy so the Goodies become Prohibition gangsters, at one stage opening their guitar cases to show they're full of custard pies.
• Played with in Kamen Rider Kabuto. The guitar case Daisuke carries around everywhere he goes is filled to the brim with cosmetics and make-up ordinance.
• Subverted in the opening scene of Mob City. A group of bootleggers are loading liquor onto a truck at night when they see three men approach them with violin cases. The bootleggers pull out their guns and tell the men to open the cases. The cases contain violins and the three men then proceed to play them. Relieved, the bootleggers put away their guns and go back to work. At this point a woman with a baby carriage approaches the violinists and they reach into the carriage, pull out Thompson submachine guns and massacre the bootleggers. Twenty years later one of the gangsters still likes to play the violin as a hobby.
• Subverted for laughs in The Monkees episode "Monkees A La Carte" when the band decide to see some gangsters. Mike is carrying a guitar case and the mobsters instantly think he has a gun in it. They grab it and discover it's only carrying the appropriate musical instrument, "Hey Boss! There's a guitar in this guitar case!"
• Played with (in this case literally) by James Coburn during his appearance on The Muppet Show: in a sketch lampooning The Roaring '20s, Coburn pulls out a violin case, frightening mob rival Gonzo when Coburn confirms that the violin case does not have a violin in it. In fact, it holds a piccolo, which Coburn uses to accompany the Muppets in a rendition of "Alexander's Ragtime Band".
• In one episode of The Nanny, Fran's mobster boyfriend reacts with surprise when the case Max hands to Grace contains an actual violin.
• A subversion in a sketch on Welcome Freshmen. The sketch, which parodies the Prohibition era with students making bathtub bubblegum, has the students drive away teachers who were onto their operation by pulling out violin cases, which they remove violins from... and then play very badly.

Manhua

• Old Master Q has a strip where Master Q is a violinist and, due to a Satchel Switcheroo, mixes his violin case with another belonging to a bank robber. Cue Master Q pulling out a machine-gun in the middle of a concert, much to the entire orchestra's horror, while elsewhere a bank robber is attempting a holdup using a violin.

Music

• Inverted by Amfisound Guitars, a Finnish company that once made a guitar that was shaped like an AK-47. Complete with a detailed paint job.◊
• The music video for The Black Keys' "Howlin' for You" features Las Teclas De Negro concealing weapons inside their instruments.
• Sparks have an album called Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins.

Pro Wrestling

• The Global Wrestling Federation (GWF) featured Sweet Daddy Falcone, a Mafia-type character who carried a mysterious violin case.
• Killer Kyle in Smoky Mountain Wrestling dressed like a Chicago mobster and carried a violin case to the ring.

Roleplay

• In Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues, Harriet runs into a problem where her newfound flying spear will follow her anywhere, including the final exams at her high school. Her solution is to hide it in a guitar case. When Daigo tries to take it from her, the spear shoots out and gives him a jab in the leg.
• This is the shtick of the younger Angels from Open Blue. They've used violin cases to store IKEA rifles, oboe cases to hide Whip Swords, and most recently, a clavichord case to hide a pair of small swords. Inspired by the Gunslinger Girl example above.

Theatre

• Used in Anything Goes by Moonface.

Video Games

• Zenia Valov from Arcana Heart has an odd examples: instead of carrying a weapon in a violin case, the violin case transforms into her Pile Bunker gauntlet.
• In Awesomenauts, the artwork for Vinnie and Spike's upgrade "Antique Machinegun" (which increases the range of the Spike Dive) is a guitar case going through an X-ray scanner with a Tommy gun inside of it.
• The titular characters from Balacera Brothers are travelling musicians, but they're also former mob enforcers. Whose violin cases contains machine guns.
• Lyude from Baten Kaitos wields a weird musical instrument trumpet thing that — according to the flavour text of all his brass wind instrument-related cards — is a gun designed for use by assassins. It's odd that honourable, diplomatic Lyude would use a weapon made for such a purpose. Then again he comes from the Empire of Alfard, where the only ones without a lethal weapon are children still in their mother's womb. Probably.
• In Bioshock Infinite Founder soldiers in Battleship Bay use violin cases to conceal shotguns for their poorly-disguised ambush at the ticket booth.
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas implies this in one mission, where you have to gun down a bunch of Mafia thugs who were going to carry out a hit disguised as a string quartet.
• Kingdom of Loathing subverts this with the penguin mafioso enemy. One of his attacks has him unwrap a violin case, open it, and pull out...a violin, which he proceeds to beat you upside the head with. One of his "miss" messages likewise subverts this trope:
  The mafia penguin unwraps a present, revealing a violin case. He opens the case to reveal a gun, and seems shocked and disappointed.
• PAYDAY 2: Unlike other heists the Golden Grin heist has you, and your crew, starting out with no gear at all (instead of just being in casing mode) and all of your gear is hidden inside of a guitar case you have to find.
• Eikichi from Persona 2: Innocent Sin uses machine guns disguised as guitar cases. Not hidden in, disguised as — a hatch opens at the "front", and the barrel pops out.
• In RuneScape a later quest has the Fairy Godfather pull out a wand out of a violin case.
• One skin for the rocket launcher in Saints Row IV lets you turn it into a missile-firing guitar case.
• Ricardo Gomez, the party's designated bard in Shadow Hearts: From The New World, doesn't keep weapons in his guitar case; instead, he keeps them built into his actual guitar, and they range from a simple rifle/shotgun arrangement built into the fretboard, all the way to an anti-personnel flamethrower and even a multi-barrel missile launcher capable of initating a Macross Missile Massacre. And it's an acoustic, even. One wonders what he could get away with on a guitar that worked with an amplifier.
• Stranglehold: Inspector Tequila uses two guitar cases full of guns in the Mega Restaurant mission of the John Woo game.
• Total Overdose has a Loco Move called "El Mariachi" where Ramiro guns down his enemies wielding a pair of guitar cases with automatic machine guns concealed inside.
• In Yandere Simulator, the Villain Protagonist can take advantage of this trope by joining the Music Club.
• Zombie Revenge features a stage where you can use Quino and Campa's guitar cases from Desperado.

Web Animation

• In the animated pilot for Lackadaisy Rocky uses a violin case not to store his violin, but to hide a Chicago typewriter so his cousin can shoot back at rival gangsters.

Webcomics

• Referenced in Afterlife Blues. In the future, those with access to nanotech who want to conceal their guns go so far as to transform them into violins.
• Played with in Last Res0rt as Cute Bruiser Jigsaw Forte appears with a violin case that everyone else thinks has a gun in it, as an explanation for why a small furry creature would want in on a show that gets people killed. She then proceeds to use this as a way to intimidate the secretary for her interview, but when it comes time to fight, she proceeds to reach for the case... and whacks the giant Robot Chickens senseless with the unopened case, then goes right back to everyone thinking that there's more in the case than she's letting on. She's not opened the case yet, but it's heavily implied there's only an ordinary violin in there... though that's not stopped the fandom from speculating.

Western Animation

• In one episode of Alvin and the Chipmunks, the boys watch a gangster movie where a thug plays this trope straight, and then believe they're seeing it for real when they see Dave paying money to a man wielding a violin case. Shortly after, Alvin ambushes the man at a concert and grabs the violin case... only to find that it contains an actual violin.
• Classic Disney Shorts: In the 1937 Disney short Mickey's Amateurs, Donald Duck's second attempt at reciting "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" involves taking to the stage in a heavy disguise and carrying a violin case... which he opens to reveal a Thompson submachine gun. When the audience laugh at his latest failed attempt to recite the poem, he opens fire on them. (No-one is killed or injured; this is Disney!)
• Buttons McBoomBoom in C.O.P.S. (Animated Series); his toy comes with a huge cello case, and a machine gun that fits inside it. His Action Figure File Card notes the case is "suspiciously heavy" and clanks as he walks. He’s also said to smell of gunpowder and wear heavy jackets in all weather with unusual bulges under the arms — he might be concealing some weapons about his person, who can say?
• In an episode of Darkwing Duck, Darkwing suspects Tuskernini of concealing weapons in instrument cases. Actually, he had concealed the weapons inside the instruments.
• In one episode of Kaput & Zosky, the pair incorrectly assume that some violin cases must contain guns, not violins. This comes back to bite them later when, as always, everything starts going horribly wrong.
• Inverted in Oscar's Orchestra: the series is set in a world where all music was banned and features a cast of sentient musical instruments rebelling against the regime. In one episode one of the characters, Monty (a violin), gets on a transport by hiding in a violin case. We then cut to a baggage handler who picks the case up and says, "Hey, I think we've got something illegal here. Oh, never mind. The tag says it's a machine gun. For a second I was afraid it was a violin."
• Parodied in The Simpsons: Krusty and Homer are looking for Krusty's daughter's violin, which Krusty lost to a mobster in a game of poker. On sneaking into a mob business meeting, they find the case... amongst a giant pile of violin cases. When they eventually find her case, it turned out to have a wad of cash in it as well.
• The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!: Parodied in "The Unzappables", where King Koopa's minions hold Snifits in their cases.
• Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales had gangster Rocky Maninoff do this; often when he threatens Tennessee and Chumley, he would warn if they fail the task he's giving them he will play a tune on his "violin," followed by imitating machine gun noises or even taking his machine gun out of his violin case and firing it to prove his point!
• In one episode of the original Transformers cartoon Megatron gets into a high-security compound this way. For those wondering, he's a size-changing character, and turns into a gun.

Real Life

• Steven P. Kazmierczak, the Northern Illinois University shooter from February 2008, packed a guitar case with shotguns in order to bypass the campus security, reached the lecture hall and started shooting people.
• Inversion: apparently, hard gun cases are sometimes used by musicians to carry instruments in, or in theater to carry microphones and other small electronics.
• Cleveland Cavaliers guard Delonte West was arrested in September 2009 for speeding on a motorcycle with two pistols and a shotgun in a guitar case.
• There actually are gun cases made to look like violin cases. And some of the modern semi-automatic Thompsons are shipped straight from the dealer in violin cases. After all, anybody who buys a Tommy gun (or at least, one that's not the WW2 military model) would probably want the violin case anyway, as iconic as it's become.
• The Lod Airport massacre: three members of the Japanese Red Army walked in the airport dressed conservatively, carrying violin cases... concealing assault rifles with their butts sawn off. The three managed to kill 24 people and injured 78. Two of them died, one shot, one committed suicide with a hand grenade.
• Jack Benny, whose stage persona was a notoriously Dreadful Musician, was asked to dine at the White House, and while he was there he would play his violin. When he arrived, a Secret Service agent asked him what he was carrying in his violin case. Benny answered that he had a Thompson submachine gun in there, "the old Chicago typewriter". The agent sighed and said "Thank God, I was afraid you had your violin in there!"
• Since standard orchestral concert dress is all black for female players, and full tuxedos for male players, or all black for both, it is not uncommon for violinists and violists to get Mafia/assassin comments every once in a while.
• Reportedly happens in Russia. Specialized gun cases are rare, while instrument cases are readily available. In some locations half of sportspeople transport their guns in instrument cases.
• Federal Express Flight 705. Auburn Calloway, a Fedex employee traveling in the jump seat, attempted to hijack the aircraft using a spear gun and several hammers that he carried on board in a guitar case. Fortunately, the pilots were able to stop his plan and none of them died.
• In a variant of this, Al Capone reputedly carried his guns in a golf bag.

---