Just out of curiosity, what would be the difference between being pistol-whipped with a fake pistol, versus a real one?
I mean, there’d be a good bit of difference between the two from the standpoint of being shot, but being smashed in the head with a ‘fake’ pistol strikes me as being just as likely to result in injury as being smashed in the head with a operable firearm.
I was being facetious, but another post mentioned it was an air gun, so, the difference in mass alone was enough to spare the victim a more debilitating “whip”.