An 84-year-old Army veteran nearly added an eighth criminal to the tally of thugs shot and killed by citizens  in Tulsa Oklahoma so far this year. Doug Jandebeur was leaving his business and thought that a friend might be playing a prank on him when he heard a voice say, “Don’t turn around.”

Then the guy behind him punched Jandebeur in the side of his head and stole his wallet.

Jandebeur quickly turned the tables on his attacker.

We asked what scared the man off, Jandebeur said, “I pulled out my automatic and was getting ready to ventilate him.”

He pulled his gun out of his left pocket, and that’s when the tables were turned, and the robber was the one afraid.

“Once he saw my gun he decided to leave,” Jandebeur said.

Other than a big bruise on his face, Jandebeur was in pretty good spirits. He said it’s just one more event in his pretty eventful life.

He hopes the guy gets caught and he’s thankful that nearby Video Revolution put up cameras and caught the whole thing on tape, including a shot of the robber’s face.

Footage also shows, earlier in the evening, the guy waited around, hid behind a pillar and waited around some more, until Jandebeur went outside so he could strike, but was caught off guard.

“Anybody who doesn’t arm themselves is asking for trouble,” Jandebeur said.

We have a “Guns Saving Lives” section at Bearing Arms to document a representative sample of defensive gun uses reported in the media every day. We feel compelled to note that these media reports do not often document typical defensive gun uses.

In most defensive gun uses no one is harmed. No shots are fired, and that makes for a lousy news story. If the attack on Jandebeur hadn’t been dramatically caught on camera, we wouldn’t likely have heard about his defensive gun use, either. It would have gone on to be just one of many un-publicized defensive gun uses every day.

Famed criminologist Dr. Gary Kleck and survey expert Dr. Marc Gertz have proven via the definitive National Self-Defense Survey (NSDS) that firearms are used defensively in the United States at least 2.5 million times each year. While supporters of gun control have attacked the results of the NSDS, they’ve never been able to successfully contest the methodology in the 22 years since the award-winning, peer-reviewed survey was first published. Other surveys using different methodologies have reached much higher numbers (over 4 million/year) and much lower (50,000-80,000/year), but the NSDS remains the “gold standard” but which all other defensive gun use surveys are judged.

Jandebeur is right: anyone who doesn’t arm themselves is failing to provide themselves with defensive options.