A man named Tyler Brown opened fire on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Mass., this week, turning an ordinary Monday afternoon into a rolling ambush near Harvard and MIT.
Middlesex DA Marian Ryan said Brown, a 46-year-old Boston man (notice no doctor was needed to identify Brown as a man), fired roughly 50 to 60 rounds from a rifle at vehicles on the roadway. Cambridge Police described the confrontation on their website.
Shortly after 1:00 p.m. Cambridge Police received a call from Boston Police reporting that a person, later identified as the person involved in today’s shooting, might be in Cambridge and that he had been observed to be acting erratically. Boston Police also relayed that the suspect was believed to be in possession of a rifle.
Cambridge Police and Massachusetts State Police began a response to the area of Memorial Drive. When Massachusetts State Police arrived, they saw an active shooter situation. The suspect was on foot walking east in the roadway, allegedly in possession of an assault-style rifle, which he was actively firing in an erratic fashion at vehicles in the roadway.
The suspect allegedly shot two male victims who were inside separate cars before being confronted by a Massachusetts State Police Trooper and a civilian, who was in legal possession of a firearm. After being confronted, the suspect allegedly continued to fire the weapon striking the State Police Cruiser. Both the civilian and the Trooper fired their weapons and the suspect was struck multiple times in the extremities.
Two drivers suffered life-threatening injuries, more than a dozen vehicles were hit, and a Massachusetts State Police cruiser also took gunfire during the attack.
Brown didn't appear from thin air; his criminal record included a 2020 shootout with Boston police, and he had pleaded guilty to charges tied to armed assault with intent to murder. He was reportedly out on probation when the Cambridge shooting unfolded.
Authorities also had reason to worry about his behavior before the bullets started flying, which makes the usual lectures about more rules and laws feel especially hollow.
A Massachusetts State trooper responded to the attack.
So did a former Marine with a valid license to carry.
Both men bravely ran toward the gunfire instead of waiting for a safer moment, firing at Brown, striking him, and helping end the threat before Memorial Drive became something far worse.
Breitbart highlights the incredible bravery displayed by that former Marine.
On Tuesday, WHAS 11 pointed out that the officer did not act alone. They noted, “A State Trooper and a Marine veteran were nearby, jumping into action and shooting the suspect.”
NBC 10 observed that a witness said the former Marine came to her car at some point during the ordeal and shielded her so she could escape.
The witness said, “A man came, went around his car and pulled open my car door and made like a barricade. He had a gun and he told me to run, and I ran and then I just ran as fast as I could.”
Brown survived with non-life-threatening injuries and faces serious charges, including armed assault with intent to murder.
Cambridge Police Acting Police Commissioner Pauline Wells, Massachusetts State Police Colonel Geoffrey Noble, and Middlesex DA Marian Ryan confirmed the investigation. Ryan praised the quick action that stopped the attacker, and the facts don't leave much room for polite evasion. A lawful armed citizen helped save lives in Massachusetts, one of America's strictest gun-control states.
Gun-control arguments often lean on a neat theory: fewer guns in private hands will produce more safety. Memorial Drive offered the uglier real-world test. Brown already had a criminal record.
And that's not the only thing he had.
He already had court supervision; he still had a rifle, reached a crowded roadway, and started shooting strangers.
All that paperwork didn't stop him, the courthouse didn't stop him, but armed resistance did.
The left keeps reaching for control over courts, classrooms, entertainment, speech, policing, and the Second Amendment because control looks like virtue when danger stays theoretical.
Real violence ruins tidy theories; no policy panel climbs into the mind of a man about to commit an act of evil by murdering strangers. No social worker talks down a rifle round after the trigger is pulled. No committee protects a driver trapped behind a windshield while a gunman walks the road.
Our sister site, Bearing Arms, has covered several examples making the same basic point. Cam Edwards highlighted research arguing armed citizens stop more mass shootings than official counts often show. Tom Knighton has also written about research showing armed citizens can reduce casualties in active-shooter cases.
According to a recent report on active shootings released by the FBI, armed citizens have stopped less than 5% of mass shootings, but Dr. John Lott with the Crime Prevention Research Center has crunched the numbers and found them to be massively underreported. In fact, as he details on today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co, his data shows almost half of all mass shootings in 2021 were ended by a “good guy with a gun.”
What accounts for the wide discrepancy in the FBI’s figures and Lott’s findings? According to the researcher, there are a couple of issues at play.
Two factors explain this discrepancy – one, misclassified shootings; and two, overlooked incidents. Regarding the former, the CPRC determined that the FBI reports had misclassified five shootings: In two incidents, the Bureau notes in its detailed write-up that citizens possessing valid firearms permits confronted the shooters and caused them to flee the scene. However, the FBI did not list these cases as being stopped by armed citizens because police later apprehended the attackers. In two other incidents, the FBI misidentified armed civilians as armed security personnel. Finally, the FBI failed to mention citizen engagement in one incident.
For example, the Bureau’s report about the Dec. 29, 2019 attack on the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, that left two men dead does not list this as an incident of “civic engagement.” Instead, the FBI lists this attack as being stopped by a security guard. A parishioner, who had volunteered to provide security during worship, fatally shot the perpetrator. That man, Jack Wilson, told Dr. John Lott that he was not a security professional. He said that 19 to 20 members of the congregation were armed that day, and they didn’t even keep track of who was carrying a concealed weapon.
As for the second factor — overlooked cases — the FBI, more significantly, missed 25 incidents identified by CPRC where what would likely have been a mass public shooting was thwarted by armed civilians. There were another 83 active shooting incidents that they missed.
According to Lott’s research, while the FBI found that 4.4% of active shooting incidents between 2014 and 2021 were stopped by an armed civilian, the number is actually more than ten times higher. Another significant finding; more than half of all active shooting incidents that did not take place in a designated “gun-free zone” came to an end as a result of a defensive gun use.
Edwards covered the Michigan church attack where volunteer safety team members, including Jay Trombley, helped stop a potential massacre before worshippers were slaughtered.
The gun-control crowd won't win the argument to gut the Second Amendment because the amendment rests on something deeper than politics. It rests on human nature. Evil doesn't wait for permission. Violence doesn't pause while help drives across town, but responsible Americans understand the terrible gap between the first scream of fear and the first siren, and they refuse to leave their families helpless inside it.
Cambridge proved the point in daylight, on a busy road, in a blue state, under strict gun laws.
A bad man brought terror, while a good man brought courage.
The Second Amendment didn't create the chaos on Memorial Drive.
It helped end it.
Cambridge gave America a brutal reminder of what happens when theory meets gunfire. PJ Media keeps telling the truth about stories the control crowd would rather explain away, especially when the facts don’t cooperate with the narrative. Join PJ Media VIP today and get 60% off with promo code FIGHT.
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