When an armed citizen took his Glock out of a safe in his vehicle and engaged an active murderer on May 11, 2026, on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Mass., (a major roadway along the Charles River near Boston), he likely saved a lot of lives.
The civilian, who reportedly had served as a Marine and was a licensed concealed carrier in the state, heroically engaged the gunman from cover. The would-be murderer shot at this armed citizen who has decided to keep his name out of the press. His car ended up with several bullet holes in it, but he drew the mass-shooter’s attention from other targets.
The story received a lot of attention, but it soon faded from the headlines. This armed citizen was just too good to be forced into an anti-gun narrative. Indeed, few reported that the former Marine only had eight rounds in his Glock and that he ran out of ammo.
Eight rounds is obviously not enough for an extended gunfight against a criminal who came prepared with multiple magazines.
The armed citizen either didn’t have a spare magazine for his pistol or he could not get back to his car’s lockbox to get one. Still, he directed others to get to cover and made the perpetrator pause as he dealt with an armed citizen.
Fortunately, the armed citizen’s actions slowed the would-be murderer down. This allowed a responding state trooper to take down the criminal sociopath. Various reports say that the criminal was both wounded by the return gunfire by the armed citizen and state trooper.
Statistically, of course, armed self-defense does not typically require eight or more rounds, but in such a worst-case scenario you never really know.
In this case, neither of the victims of this criminal died, but both were injured critically. The criminal also was critically injured, but is expected to recover.
The onerous gun-control laws in Massachusetts, however, should have gotten more bad press. In the state, it is generally illegal to sell, offer for sale, transfer, or possess magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds; there is an exception, as some concealed carries still qualify for a narrow exemption (primarily “pre-ban” magazines lawfully possessed before Sept. 13, 1994). So, this armed citizen did not have the option of having what would be considered a standard-capacity magazine for most pistols (including Glocks).
The responding police officer was likely armed with a SIG Sauer P320, as this is the official service pistol for Massachusetts’ state troopers, but he might have had a full-size Smith & Wesson M&P duty pistol, as this was the previous service pistol. (It changed in 2023.) In either case, the trooper likely had multiple 17-round magazines.
There are real consequences to gun-control laws designed to disarm law-abiding citizens. In this case, had the trooper arrived a minute later, this armed citizen might have been killed.
Not long after, on Independence Day, the gun-control group March for Our Lives posted on X: “Gun violence in America was not an accident. It was built through specific decisions, laws, and power structures, going back to the founding. 250 years later we are still living with the consequences.”
Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, responded, “You owe your right to tweet stupid things to the armed citizens who refused to lay down their guns at the Tyrant’s demand.”
Still, Swearer could have gone further, as the historical and contemporary ignorance of this March for Our Lives social-media person is not just palpable, it also is part of an attempt to reduce this civil-rights issue to a false bumper-sticker claim that guns cause murder—on Independence Day no less.
To make this claim, this gun-control group does not just have to ignore all of human history—murder, of course, hardly began when gun powder was invented—but also all contemporary crime research, as concealed carriers in the U.S. commit almost no crimes with their lawfully owned firearms. Armed citizens do, however, stop a lot of crimes.
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