Yesterday morning people in Minneapolis who were traversing east on I-94 were in for delays. The police blocked off two lanes as it moved to arrest a man who reportedly brandished a firearm at another driver. As you can guess this headline got a few of the local gun control nuts riled up. This was exactly the event they were waiting for. One of those evil carry permit holders getting into a fit of road rage and threatening a fellow motorist with a firearm. Then the story was updated with information provided by the Minnesota State Patrol:
Police caught up to that driver on I-94 at Olson Hwy. and blocked two of the southbound lanes for a short time while making an arrest. That was enough to cause traffic to jam up back to West Broadway.
The State Patrol took the man with the gun into custody. He was questioned and released after officers learned he was an ATF agent who was carrying proper credentials.
Talk about a bummer. That update really killed the gun control nuts’ mojo (and I mean really killed it, as in the handful of comments I had collected to post here were tossed down the memory hole). But the update didn’t surprise me or any of my other gunnie friends. This is exactly the type of professionalism that we’ve come to expect from agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).
But the real icing on the cake, in my opinion, was how quickly the situation was swept under the rug:
His name was not released per Minnesota State Statue 13.82, which states that data would reveal the identity of an undercover law enforcement officer can be kept private.
Had you or I been accused of the same thing we’d be rotting in a cage. But since the suspect is an agent of the ATF he was not only released but his name was kept private. Service to the state has its privileges.