I had a situation where a firearm would of been nice to have handy. I remember I was cruising the strip in a modified MR2 Turbo. I had a license plate on it that was meant to be humorous jab at American car owners "URV8SX" usually most people laughed but sometimes people would take it as a personal attack. This guy pulled up next to me in his girl friends accord asking me about my car, how fast it was. I said it was good for a 12 second quarter mile and has about $10,000 under the engine lid (Not fast by most avid quartermile enthusiasts standards, but for a low income college kid, I was proud of the car). He then call it a POS, a toy, me a homosexual. He had his girlfriend keep driving up next to me so he could yell more insults at me. It was like that show boiling point that was popular at the time, I finally boiled over, I flipped him off and he continues to hurl insults with his girl friend making sure to keep very close to me so I can hear them. I then threw one single penny at his car and hit the gas. I did feel threatened at the time, but I didn't have a cellphone on me.
So I get to a stop light, and they pull up right behind me, girl gets out of the car and throws something at me. It's like she was shocked that someone would respond to all the obscenities and road raging they were doing and couldn't fathom that they might make someone mad. The boyfriend then gets out of the car and comes up to my driver's side window with his fist pulled back like he's about to clock me, oh and this guy was big he looked like Chuck Liddell. Light turns green, I revved the car up to the rev limiter and popped the clutch doing a drag launch on a public road, and then promptly make a U-Turn.
My guess is the guy was a violent criminal who was released from prison and was going around looking to pick on young kids in their Japanese cars or something. I look back on the incident, what I did wrong, what could of been improved upon. These days I generally ignore road ragers, but I now have at least a cell phone on me to call the police if they come off as very threatening or are following me just to yell at me. I think a firearm in the glovebox wouldn't be a bad idea as my state allows it.
As for American cars vs Japanese cars, based on that incident as well as several others I came to the conclusion that I really do like both Japanese and American Cars. I just hate American car owners as they are the most small minded, conceited smug group of people, who actually get violent over their love of a certain country of origin that a car's name brand is from. I don't think I've ever heard of any MR2 or Supra owners doing that to some guy in a mustang, but the American V8 crowd, I just find them so "stupid" for lack of a better term when it comes to talking about an appreciation for modified cars, that I don't think I'd ever want to be associated with them. It's not that I don't like American cars, its that I don't like their owners.
