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A man charged with trying to kill students by hitting them with a car said he would have preferred using a gun but screening laws were too stringent, according to a letter read at a hearing in his case.

Mohammed Taheri-Azar drove a Jeep Cherokee into a crowd of students March 3 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and hit nine people, none of whom had life-threatening injuries.

A police officer read the typed letter in court Friday.

"I would instead use a handgun to murder the citizens and residents of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but the process of receiving a permit for a handgun in this city is highly restricted and out of my reach at present, most likely due to my foreign nationality," the letter said.

Taheri-Azar, a 2005 graduate of the school, also had two cans of pepper spray and folding knife in the rented vehicle. He has said the act was to avenge deaths of Muslims caused by the U.S. around the world.

"I do not wish to pursue my career as a student any further because I have no desires to amass the impermanent and temporary fame and material wealth that this world has to offer," the letter said

"However, I made the decision to continue my studies and to graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill so that the world will know that Allah's servants are very intelligent."

Family: Alleged UNC campus crasher a “kind, gentle soul”

The man accused of trying to kill nine people by driving through a pedestrian plaza at the University of North Carolina is “a kind, gentle and pure soul” whose action was completely out of character, his family said in a statement Friday.

Yet, Mohammed Taheri-azar, 22, appeared to laugh during a hearing earlier in the day as witnesses described the attack on the university's flagship campus.

He faces nine charges of attempted murder and nine of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury. If convicted on all counts, he could be sentenced to about 150 years in prison.

Friday's probable cause hearing was meant to outline the case against Taheri-azar. But in letters to reporters and statements to police over the past few weeks, Taheri-azar has already described how he drove through the plaza known as “The Pit” and hit people.

He has said he was taking revenge on the United States government for the deaths of Muslims around the world. Authorities say he plotted the attack for months.

No one was seriously injured during the incident just before noon March 3.

Taheri-azar is a U.S. citizen who was born in Iran, the middle of three children and his family's only son. His parents married in Iran in 1972 and were divorced in 2003. He attended high school in Charlotte and graduated from UNC last fall.

Laila Taheri-Azar, Mohammed's older sister, said outside Friday's hearing that her brother was an average person - a NASCAR fan who enjoyed fishing and camping with his friends.

“Please let us echo in your ears that my brother was and always has been a kind, gentle and pure soul,” she read from a statement. “His current actions and words are as much a source of shock and distress to us as they are to you.”

Taheri-azar, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, appeared to be reading the Quran during much of the hearing and seemed to laugh at times during testimony.

Freshman Alex Slater said he had just finished lunch and was walking to class when he noticed a Jeep in the area.

“He rolled up right next to us and I looked inside the car and there is the driver, and he just stepped on the gas and turned the wheel,” Slater said. “He just floored it right through The Pit.”

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That's the brain washing power of the "religion of peace" (note sarcasm).