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One of the Massholes has his license revoked
By adamg on Mon, 01/28/2019 - 6:00pm
We're referring, of course, to the guy who drove down the turnpike with the other guy on his hood. Hood guy faced a criminal charge as well. However, the third guy, the one who pulled out his gun at the end of it all, is OK, because he has a license to carry. NECN recounts the action and provides copies of court documents with the two initial guys' conflicting stories.
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Comments
About the gun
I'm honestly surprised, you can pull a gun on other people who aren't immediately threatening you in the name of public safety? That seems odd.
Why wouldn't this qualify as "immediately threatening"?
Charged driver was proceeding down the turnpike at speed (in the fast lane in fact!) with someone hanging onto his windshield!
How could this not qualify as "immediately threatening" to every other individual in every vehicle nearby?
(And of course, its entirely possible that the legal (non-discharge) uses of a handgun by a private citizen are more generous than that. I would imagine that preventing the murder of someone other than yourself counts as well).
As has been mentioned many times, the car was boxed in
As has been mentioned many times, the car was boxed in when Mr. Handgun Hero decided to start waving his weapon around to show what a tough guy he was. He did absolutely nothing to improve anybody's safety.
The Staties should have arrested him for mischief at the very least, if only to set an example and prevent the next Clint Eastwood wannabe from trying to make the news by yelling "out of the car, everyone down on the ground!"
But of course it's too demanding to expect any logic from the erstwhile Troop E, which has always had its own set of laws separate from the Commonwealth's.
MSP is not going to make
MSP is not going to make bogus arrests to set "examples" for things not codified in Massachusetts General Law. The legislature makes laws not some Judge Dread with a badge.
Yeah, MSP would never make a bogus arrest to set an example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6XM-fB9Wy4
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2018/10/05/charges-dismissed-skat...
police say is a properly
police say is a properly licensed gun owner, left his car and ordered Fitzgerald out of his vehicle at gunpoint, putting an end to the wild ride.
Waving?
Waving a gun around is an incredibly hard thing to do. You can easily wave a flag around. You can wave a hand around to say hello. Waving a gun around would require some well thought out choreography to pull it off correctly.
Now, I only saw stills from the incident, but from my perspective, there was no gun waving. Just pointing. Pointing in directions that seemed pretty reasonable... after all was said and done.
I would not have brandished, though, in that situation. Overkill IMHO.
to show what a tough guy he
As opposed to anon poster who shows what a tough guy he is by labeling other people "tough guy".
Refugee, this is Massachusetts, let me help explain
The man had a legally-owmed firarm, and he used it to put an end to a dangerous episode that endangered the lives of many, many people.
To liberal MA anti-gun folks, that obviously makes HIM the bad guy.
Additional translations:
Displayed a first = wavived a gun around
Stepped in to stop the situation = tough guy
You get it.
This has nothing to do with liberalism
It has everything to do with 1) guns run amok in our country as fetish objects and, 2) people not raised around guns in the good old days when guns were seen as tools and not fetish objects.
I'm a liberal's liberal but I own guns. This is a ridiculous reaction to a country that is saturated with an absurdly stupid gun culture.
Yes you are a liberal's liberal
Thanks for proving my point.
Also, when did guns grow legs and begin running amok? And get into the fetish scene?
You must be hanging in some interesting circles.
Sure you "own a gun", is it a semi fully automatic assault bump stock hollow point tactical ak-47 banana clip magnum pi?
Send pics.
Because
When the guy pulled the gun the car was already blocked and the guy was off the hood. The immediate threat was over.
He wasn't wrong to run over and help, but pointing a gun at everyone involved (when they don't have a firearm) isn't helpful.
Where does it say he was
Where does it say he was "pointing a gun at everyone involved"? You're just making stuff up.
According to the police report (and common sense) the gun was only pointed at the SUV driver, who was a threat until he was out of the car and in handcuffs.
That guy in Rhode Island
Was boxed in too...then he started trying to ram the cars out of his way....the threat is not over until the subject is in cuffs.
Preventing a possible homicide has some value.
The individual with the gun was preventing an assault with a deadly weapon (the SUV), or worse. While that individual himself may not have been directly threatened, the guy on the hood certainly was.
I don't think adding a gun to the mix was a very bright idea in general, and it could have ended poorly for him. That said, we should also be cautious about making it illegal for citizens to help one another.
Possession of a gun
does not make you an officer of the law. This is one of the problems I see with private handgun ownership. I am willing to believe in this person's good intentions, and even in his sincere conviction that his action was necessary under the circumstances. Many people know what it's like to accidentally fall into a default position of authority; being the only adult present when two kids start a fight, for instance. But I'm not willing to accept that in any random gathering of adult civilians, authority should automatically be conceded to whatever person happens to be carrying a gun. The person with the gun is not necessarily the most sensible person, or the person with the best grasp of the situation, or the person with the best control of his or her own emotions. If authority is automatically conceded to whoever has a gun, then it is inevitable that some will begin carrying guns just to gain that authority. And what if there is more than one person with a gun?
In my opinion it should be against the law for anyone but a police officer to point a gun at another person, except under extreme and well-defined circumstances. Wanting to get a chaotic situation under control should not qualify.
^^^ THIS
hits the nail on the head.
situation was already beyond "chaotic"
Driving on the pike with a person hanging on the hood sounds like a good example of "extreme and well-defined circumstances".
It is interesting to me that
It is interesting to me that the fellow pointing the gun was not in more trouble. MA is a duty to retreat state unless you are in your home, though this tends to come into play more when a firearm is actually discharged. My guess would be that the situation was considered to be one of extreme emotional strain or imminent danger, as I am assuming none of those who boxed the guy in, including the one who trained the handgun on the driver knew exactly what was happening right then. No one knew that some of the blame was to be placed on both sides, to them it looked like a guy was holding on to the hood of an SUV traveling between 30 and 60mph down the Mass Pike, and the person driving didn't seem much interested in stopping, and if anything seemed to be driving erratically so as to get the guy off the hood, which if he didn't manage to have such a death grip on, would easily have killed him.
In retrospect, since he was boxed in, probably not 100% necessary for the guy to train the handgun on him, but I am also sure that in the situation no one was taking the time to assess whether the guy behind the wheel wasn't completely insane and ready to stomp on it and plow into the cars and people around his car, it isn't as if he'd exhibited a lot of evidence of self control and good judgment up until that point that would give them reason to approach the car and ask him politely if he'd mind stepping out from behind the wheel.
Finally, from the stance, position, and hold on the handgun, the guy who was pointing it seemed as though he was trained in its use, was pretty calm and under control. He wasn't smashing the window in with the butt, or "waving it around" as a previous commenter stated. I have seen people doing the latter, and it does not look like that. Could the situation have turned into a more dangerous one were the guy in the SUV also to have been armed and decided to have a shootout? Sure. Might the guy who pointed the gun have accidentally discharged it and killed or badly injured someone? Yup. However, other scenarios might also have been, including the guy driving crushing the people standing in front of him, or doing something equally dangerous and unpredictable with the deadly weapon he had control over with his hands and feet (i.e. a very heavy and very powerful SUV). He didn't, he decided to stop whatever crazy thing he was doing and the MSP showed up, responsibly put the guy with the gun in handcuffs until they figured out what was going on, and didn't charge him with anything. They probably could have, but given the situation, evidently decided that it wasn't something they wanted to pursue. Out of the three people directly engaged here, I think that the most dangerous was by far the one behind the wheel of the SUV.
What's never been made very clear
Is how the guy ended up on the hood in the first place - some say he jumped onto the hood when the SUV came at him, others say he jumped on it voluntarily. It sounds like he's as much of a lunatic as the other guy, reaching into the guy's car for a water bottle and smashing his windshield, etc. I'm sure that the guy on the hood had plenty of opportunities to get off, but refused.
Having a license to carry
Having a license to carry means it's okay to pull a gun on people? I didn't see that as a self-defense situation for the gun holder
Fitzgerald has a record of pulling stuff
Another story at https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/Apparent-Road-Rage-Suspects-Face-Ju... says "Fitzgerald has a prior out-of-state record, with incidents ranging from a prior OUI to assault and reckless endangerment in Vermont and Connecticut."