But two men who saw Bob Gross with the gun argued that they were the ones who had reason for fear during the Saturday evening incident.
Gross, a chief of staff under Gov. Mike Leavitt, said he brought out the .40-caliber Sig Sauer pistol from under the seat of his car after being cut off by a white pickup. He said the driver then pulled alongside his black Nissan convertible and the truck's occupants executed "a double obscene gesture."
"I was frightened as to their intent for my wife and me and reached down and pulled my holstered concealed firearm up from beneath my seat to between my legs," Gross wrote in a statement taken after Utah Highway Patrol troopers executed a "high risk" stop on the former U.S. Congressional candidate's car in Sandy.
"At no time did I intend to brandish the weapon, point it or threaten with it," wrote Gross, who was held overnight in the Salt Lake County Jail on suspicion of using a weapon in a fight or threat.
The driver and one of two passengers in the truck told police Gross waved the gun in a threatening manner after the near-collision.
The truck's driver, Raymond Carter, claimed it was Gross who cut him off, noting in his report that he only responded with a honk of his horn.
Gross "flashed a pistol . . . and raised it up and down a few times to let us know that he was armed," Carter wrote.
Carter called the incident a case of "road rage."
Passenger Robert Clyde recounted the incident in similar terms. A third passenger - described by Carter as a "Utah Corrections Officer," said he did not see the weapon but called police on a mobile phone after his friends described what they had seen.
In her statement, Gross' wife said her husband "was nervous and picked up his concealed weapon so they would leave us alone."
Gross, Leavitt's chief of staff in 1997 and an unsuccessful candidate for Utah's 1st Congressional District in 2002, recently returned from Baghdad after a four-month stint as an adviser to provisional American administrative head Paul Bremer.
mlaplante@sltrib.com
