Taxi driver. (Exercising the Right).(uses gun to avert robbery)(Brief Article)

Former taxi driver John Lutters of Seymour, Connecticut, drove a cab in the Nutmeg State for about three years. Shortly before midnight on June 15, 2001, he picked up a fare who placed a pair of scissors at his neck and sought to rob him. When Travis Hazelwood, 38, began slashing Lutters' throat, the beleaguered cabbie managed to pull a handgun he was carrying and shoot the thug. He then dragged the mortally wounded Hazelwood from the cab, left him on the side of the road, disconnected the cab's two-way radio, and drove off.

A few hours later, after Lutters' dispatch center informed him that police were looking for him, he turned himself in.

State prosecutors concluded that the killing of Hazelwood was justified, but Lutters was nevertheless charged with carrying the firearm without a permit.

Lutters' attorney filed a motion to dismiss the charge, arguing that his client did not need a permit because state law provides exemptions for guns in homes and businesses. Lutters' taxi, he contended, was his place of business.

On May 22nd, Connecticut Superior Court Judge Lubbie Harper Jr. ruled that owner-operator taxi drivers are indeed allowed to carry guns in their cabs without obtaining state pistol permits, provided that they have some level of ownership interest in the vehicles. He asserted that the gun control laws were designed to reduce the number of weapons circulating in the "public sphere," but ...