In Part Three, Captain Beatty takes Montag along for a call and arrives at his home. Montag is shocked to discover that Mildred called in an alarm on him, and Beatty makes Montag burn his home and book collection using a flamethrower. After Montag destroys his home and private collection of books, Captain Beatty attempts to place him under arrest. Captain Beatty proceeds to berate Montag for trying to undermine the government by illegally possessing novels and ends up slapping the green bullet out of Montag's ear. When Captain Beatty mentions that they will use the green bullet to track down Montag's fellow criminal partner, Montag switches the safety off of the flamethrower and aims it at the captain. Captain Beatty responds by smiling at Montag and quoting a line from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar before challenging Montag to shoot him. Montag then squeezes the trigger and shoots Captain Beatty with liquid flames.
Montag ends up killing Captain Beatty to avoid being arrested and to protect Faber from suffering the same fate. Montag also wishes to stop the cycle of burning books and censoring literature. Montag recognizes Captain Beatty as a zealous proponent of censorship and believes that he is doing society a favor by killing him. Although Montag pulls the trigger by instinct, the aforementioned reasons explain his impulsive reaction.
In Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist Guy Montag murders fire chief Beatty in an act of impulsive desperation. After the firemen are deployed to Montag's house, Beatty reveals that Montag's hidden stash of books has been discovered, thus making Montag a criminal. At this point, Beatty already had a tendency to taunt Montag and bully him into cooperative submission. Beatty is an arrogant, though knowledgeable, gentleman who uses his knowledge of books and literature to suggest to Montag that their job of burning books is not only their legal responsibility but their moral responsibility as well.
When Beatty orders Montag to burn the books in his house, Beatty discovers the secret earpiece through which Montag and his literature-reading friend Faber have been communicating. With Montag having lost his wife (she flees after discovering Montag's books) and profession, and with a criminal charge of keeping literature being placed upon his head, he feels he has no choice but to kill Beatty and to escape. He kills Beatty in order to save himself, but more importantly, to save Faber from persecution.
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