Two people who attempted to by a dog via social media were set up in a robbery attempt in Tyler, Texas by a group of three or more black males, at least one of whom appeared to be armed.

Guess what? So was one of the intended victims, and he wasn’t having any of it.

A robbery attempt was thwarted by a victim with a license to carry Tuesday night.

The Tyler Police Department responded to a report of a robbery outside the Family Dollar store at 3505 Frankston Highway at 8 p.m., according to a news release.

The officers met with two victims who said they had come to the store to purchase a dog after seeing on advertisement on social media.

When they arrived, they were met by a single black male who led them around the building to make the transaction. As they turned the corner they were confronted by several more black males who yelled at them to get on the ground. The victims believe one of the suspects pointed a handgun at them, but could not be certain due to poor lighting conditions.

One of the victims, who has a valid Texas Handgun License, drew his weapon and pointed it at the suspects. The suspects fled and the victims went inside and asked store employees to call the police.

The thwarted robbery is both by far the most common use of a firearm in the United States, and the least reported.

The vast majority of defensive gun uses are instances just like this one, where a firearm is displayed or implied (someone strikes a defensive posture and puts a hand on a firearm, but doesn’t draw it), but shots are not fired. Defensive gun uses like this happen somewhere between 300,000 and 3+ million times a year (depending on the researcher you want to believe), and few of these instances ever make it on the news because they’re simply not deemed to be “newsworthy” most days in a news cycle dominated by “if it bleeds, it leads” sensationalism.

Guns save lives constantly, and most of the time, they aren’t even fired.