Buckeye police have arrested a man for pulling a gun on another driver.
According to the Buckeye Police Department, around 1 p.m. on Tuesday, a woman reported she was in a parking lot near Watson Rd and Sundance Ave when the suspect, driving a Jeep Gladiator, began backing out of a spot, almost hitting her vehicle. After she honked her horn, the victim reported, the suspect got out of the Jeep, grabbed an AR-15 style rifle from his back seat and pointed it at her. The victim drove away and called 911.
Using resources from the Real Time Information Center including information from a license plate reader in the area, Buckeye police were able to locate the suspect about two hours later in a shopping plaza across the street.
The suspect, identified as 32-year-old Erik French, was arrested and booked into jail for disorderly conduct with a weapon. Officers seized the rifle.
It’s great that the suspect was found with a license plate reader. Every abusive technology can be justified, occasionally. But what happens when the ‘crime’ becomes not masking in public, or having “too large” a carbon foot print, or “misgendering” someone with mental health issues? Just say ‘no’ to Big Brother.
Reacting with a deadly weapon to a non-injurious confrontation (such as an insult) is grossly bad judgment, bordering on stupid. With great respect for our Constitution, the 2A should not protect stupid.
It doesn’t, which is why there are criminal penalties for this kind of behavior. The problem is when people see an extreme outlier of an occurrence and want to ban guns because of the lack of a few people to figure out life without violence.