Hold on, rob a BANK? Bank as in place that I go to drop my checks off and have never withdrawn a single damn note, bill or hard cash from in my life?
This is the 21st century, banks just aren't the same as the wild west, prohibition era or even the 90's as with HEAT.
No body robs banks any more as that is not where the money is kept. I mean who deposits cash in a bank any more? Cheques maybe, apply for loans, but there is hardly any money in banks any more, they are far more like offices for personal finance, applying for loans, arranging ELECTRONIC management of your funds, mortgages, savings accounts, etc.
I'm quite sure one bank could handle millions of dollars of money in just one day yet I'm quite sure you could not find more than maybe a couple thousand dollars of actual cash in the whole place. I mean a bank has amazing solid defences, robust security response and the location is often where it is hard to escape from and easy for the cops to surround.
...
But a certain film does spring to mind:
PUMPKIN
I mean the way it is now, you're
takin' the same fuckin' risk as
when you rob a bank. You take more
of a risk. Banks are easier!
Federal banks aren't supposed to
stop you anyway, during a robbery.
They're insured, why should they
care? You don't even need a gun in
a federal bank.
I heard about this guy, walked into
a federal bank with a portable
phone, handed the phone to the
teller, the guy on the other end of
the phone said: "We got this guy's
little girl, and if you don't give
him all your money, we're gonna
kill 'er."
HONEY BUNNY
Did it work?
PUMPKIN
Fuckin' A it worked, that's what
I'm talkin' about! Knucklehead
walks in a bank with a telephone,
not a pistol, not a shotgun, but a
fuckin' phone, cleans the place
out, and they don't lift a fuckin'
finger.
As Pulp Fiction illustrates, you have to rob people where they least expect it, and most importantly where the ACTUAL cash is. There is no cash in a bank, in relative terms at least, the paycheck is either wired directly or is just a bit of paper, the withdrawals are either by credit card, debit card or from an ATM/cash machine.
No, the place to hit if anywhere are the cash machines, the ATMs, they are often in remote locations, unguarded and police response is slow, so you would won't even need a gun as there would presumably be no people around to care.
The best trick would be to pose as a technician who is merely refilling the cash machine, if you can figure out how to access the cash without setting off the alarms, you can rob them and they wouldn't notice for days.
But it won't be long before the bank-robber or cash robber will be completely obsolete as we rely more and more on electronic payments via debit cards, credit cards, pre-paid and stored-vault cards, even payments directly though your mobile phone. Cash will more into the periphery of finances making it harder to steal and even harder to use.
And so with it an entire class of criminal will disappear, the stick up artist, one that is as old as civilisation itself.