Authorities in San Diego County, California say a man is in custody and facing a number of criminal charges after he tried to abscond with an elderly man’s goat on Monday afternoon, only to be shot in the ensuing struggle.

It was just before 3:30 p.m. when police got the call from a 79-year old homeowner in the town of San Marcos who told dispatchers he’d caught a much younger man trying to sneak off with the aforementioned goat.

The homeowner approached the alleged thief with a rifle in his hands, Collins said. During a struggle for the firearm, the homeowner fired the rifle, hitting the intruder in the hands, according to the lieutenant.

The man was taken to a hospital for treatment of injures that were not considered life threatening.

He’s now facing charges of robbery and elder abuse, among others, though given California’s stance on prosecuting violent criminals there’s a good chance he’ll soon have more freedom than the backyard pet he tried to steal.

Thankfully it doesn’t sound like the goat owner is facing any charges, which is also always a possibility given California’s views towards legal gun ownership and self-defense. And since the suspect didn’t suffer any life-threatening injuries, there’s always the chance that this will be a much-needed wake up call that puts him on a new path in life; one that doesn’t lead to the backyards of strangers and their furry companions.

In Grayson County, Kentucky, however, another intruder made a fatal mistake when he targeted a home early this morning by breaking in through a bedroom window.

GCSO said the homeowner was retrieving a handgun when the intruder grabbed him from behind. After a struggle, officials said both men went down on the floor and the homeowner was able to fire two shots that killed the intruder.

Samuel Craig Cheeks, identified as the intruder, was pronounced dead on scene and he was taken to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Roanoke for an autopsy.

The investigation is still continuing, but Sheriff Richard Vaughan said it appears that the homeowner was acting within the law.

That must have been an absolutely terrifying experience for the homeowners, and it’s a shame that the gun owner was put into the position where he had to take a life in order to protect his own and the lives of his family. Fortunately, however, he was in a position to protect himself, and may not have even needed to discharge his weapon if Cheeks hadn’t actually assaulted him. The vast majority of defensive gun uses don’t involve pulling the trigger, but when Cheeks chose to attack the homeowner instead of running away or simply dropping to his knees and waiting for police to arrive he made the last in a string of bad decisions; this one costing him his life.

For more armed citizen stories, be sure to check out Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co every Monday through Thursday. Not only are we covering the latest and biggest Second Amendment news stories, each show features a defensive gun use from around the nation. Whether protecting strangers, our four-legged goat friends, or ourselves, Americans exercise their right to armed defense thousands of times a day. These incidents rarely draw national media attention, even when there are compelling acts of kindness like a Good Samaritan helping to save a sex trafficking victim escaping from her violent enslaver, but we do our best here at Bearing Arms to give them the attention they deserve.