Richard Russel...seemed like a nice guy. Sad to listen to the dialogue with the control tower in his last hour of life. Amazing if he did indeed learn to fly the plane from flight sim games.

When the full investigation comes out will be interesting to see if he learned solely through flight sim games and internet videos. As he worked on the ramp and was apparently part of the tow crew he would have been trained for basic start up of electrical power getting the APU started, but he had to learn how to start the engines somewhere, it's not typically something taught to ground crew as its not applicable to their duties.

That's true. He seemed to be able to fly it well though, including a loop I think, being up in the air for over an hour.

And just what would you expect ATC to do
the last I heard they weren't equipped to shoot down planes

They were supposed to run out onto the runway with a red flag and wave him to a stop.

I'm no detective, but I'd bet the ATC was in the control tower. The first indication they noticed a stray plane was when he pulled out of the service area and people began reporting it, then when the ATC asked him over and over on the radio who the hell he was, beginning as he taxied out to the runway. If this is the first time you've heard about this story you should check out the news articles and watch the video and hear the voice recording.

There were 2 F-15's ready to shoot him down if he headed for the city.

ATC seemed to handle the situation very calmly and professionally. Trying to talk the guy down.

No they weren't, they were out the back, having a smoke!

De nada.
One of my cousins was a test pilot on the Dash-8 and he said it's the safest thing in the air, said he tried to crash it and couldn't, so that might be one reason the guy was airborne as long as he was.

Has nobody considered he was able to fly thanks to his Joe 90 specs?

Again, I'll ask you how you expect to stop a reasonably large aircraft from going where it wants to?
Are you expecting the driver of the vehicle to risk their life? Are you volunteering to stand in front of props that could mince you into small pieces and hold up your hand to say "stop!"?

I think somebody gets their inspiration from Die Hard - all we need now is Bruce Willis!