A Georgia man is in police custody after an armed citizen and several other bystanders intervened in what they thought was an attempted abduction; a situation that authorities say instead involved child abuse and domestic violence.

I’m not sure if it’s better or worse that the man arrested is related to the victim instead of being unknown to him, but either way it’s a blessing that there was a good guy with a gun around who prevented the attack from escalating any further.

Kelcey Willis had stopped at a Walmart in Warner Robins, Georgia back on November 6th for an oil change, not realizing that he was about to help save a child’s life.

“As buddy was filling us in to get our oil change we heard a little kid screaming so we turned to the corner down there and we seen him getting snatched out the car and the man was taking him behind the building. We though he was using the bathroom but it took him way too long to come back from behind the building”, says Willis.

Willis says when the child kept screaming he felt he had to take action.

“The screaming kept getting louder and louder and that didn’t sit right with us. My first instinct was to grab my gun and go get that kid out the woods”, says Willis.

Once in the woods, Willis says he realized the danger the child was in.

“By the time I came around the corner he was on top of him choking him choking him and at that point I just put my gun up and held him at gun point and grabbed the kid”, says Willis.

When police arrived a short time later they were able to take 67-year old Haimnarine Doobay into custody. Doobay, who authorities say is related to the child, is now facing charges of aggravated assault and cruelty towards a child. Willis, meanwhile, says he’s glad he listened to his gut and took action.

If I ain’t step in, and I ain’t react as fast as I did, the kid would probably be dead,” Willis said. “He would’ve choked the child cold. Once we got the kid out the woods, he said the man was going to beat him and leave him for the animals.”

Like the vast majority of defensive gun uses, Willis didn’t have to pull the trigger to stop the assault on the child. The fact that he was armed was apparently enough to convince the suspect to not only stop choking the boy, but to stick around until the authorities showed up as well. And despite the claims of gun control activists that an armed citizen intervening can just cause confusion and chaos for responding officers, it seems like the Warner Robins police had no trouble differentiating between the suspect and the individuals, including Willis, who put a stop to the assault.

Violent crime can happen at anywhere and at any time; even in a crowded Walmart parking lot on a sunny weekend afternoon. Did Kelcey Willis really need to carry a gun with him while he got his oil changed? Probably not. But did he need to carry a gun in order to prevent a kid from being choked to death in the woods behind that Walmart? Probably so.

Most of us don’t carry in self-defense because we expect to be attacked as we go about our daily routine. We carry because we know it’s a possibility, and on the off chance that we are targeted we want to be able to protect ourselves and the people we love; or in this case, a child in desperate need of help who may very well be alive today because Kelcey Willis decided to bring his gun with him while he got an oil change.