A man wearing body armor opened fire on California troopers in Oakland yesterday but was subdued and hospitalized. No one was killed. But his mother thinks anger over Congress' "left-wing agenda" spurred the attack. Her cache of guns helped, too.

The attack from 45-year-old Byron Williams came early Sunday:

The incident started around midnight when two CHP officers tried to stop a white Toyota Tundra pickup that had been speeding and weaving in and out of traffic on westbound Interstate 580, said CHP Officer Sam Morgan.

The officers used a loudspeaker to direct the driver off the freeway, but he stopped on I-580 west of Grand Avenue, Morgan said.

As officers walked toward the pickup, they saw the man pick up a handgun and open fire on the officers, police said. The officers said they returned gunfire and radioed for help.

Three CHP vehicles had their windows shot out, but no officers were shot, police said. They said the driver was armed with a rifle and a shotgun as well as the handgun and fired at least two of the weapons during the shootout.

Morgan said the driver was hit numerous times and survived only because he was wearing a bullet-resistant vest.

Jesus. Meanwhile, Williams' mother suggests that he'd been watching too much news and just "snapped." Well, apparently she'd been watching too much news too, because she felt there was a revolution coming and kept a freaking arsenal of weapons in her house, which came in handy when Byron wanted to go out and shoot police officers.

She said her son, who had been a carpenter and a cabinetmaker before his imprisonment, was angry about his unemployment and about "what's happening to our country."

Williams watched the news on television and was upset by "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items," his mother said.

She said she had planned to cook salsa with her son on Sunday and was making preparations when she got a call from a television reporter, looked out the window and saw that her pickup was gone.

She said she then checked the locked safe where she kept her guns, all legally purchased and owned, and found that they were also missing.

Janice Williams said she kept the guns because "eventually, I think we're going to be caught up in a revolution." But she said she had told her son many times that "he didn't have to be on the front lines."

There are some lessons here.