A woman on a Memorial Day weekend trip to Little Rock, Arkansas was forced to shoot a man in self-defense after he attacked her and her husband in a parking garage while the couple was packing up their vehicle for the ride home.

According to Little Rock police, the suspect first approached the husband as he was putting some items on the roof of their vehicle, coming up from behind and striking him several times before making a move towards the driver-side door.

Another victim, who was in the passenger’s seat of the car, told officers that the suspect got into the front seat of the vehicle and hit her in the face with his fist. The report said she told police that she pulled out her pistol and shot toward the suspect, striking him in the head and neck area.

Once the suspect fell to the ground, the report said that woman in the car called 911.

Officers said that two children were in the vehicle at the time of the attempted carjacking and shooting.

Once officers arrived at the scene and made sure the victims were safe, they began first aid on the suspect until medical personnel arrived.

At last report the suspect was still in the hospital but is expected to recover, while thankfully neither of his intended victims were seriously injured, though the husband apparently received a fractured rib as a result of the attack.

This father, his pregnant wife, and their two girls were packing their car in a river market parking garage when they got attacked.

According to the police report, the wife said her husband was hit multiple times and tackled to the ground by another man.

Then, that person went to the driver’s seat where he struck the wife.

“Ah, just a fractured rib, and my wife has a couple of knots on her forehead where he apparently punched her,” the father said.

The report states the wife pulled out her gun and shot the person in the neck.

“A lot of things could’ve happened and we never know what he was really planning or anything. if he was trying to kidnap our girls or just trying to steal the car or what,” the father said.

The father said he is thankful his wife was carrying and was able to protect the family.

My guess is that the suspect, identified by police as 37-year-old Markevious King, didn’t even know that there were kids in the car, but wouldn’t have cared either way. I mean, he did punch a pregnant woman in the face instead of running away once it became clear that the man he’d just assaulted had a family inside the vehicle, so whatever his initial intent it appears he was prepared to inflict as much violence as he believed necessary to get away with whatever crime he was trying to carry out.

As it turns out, the armed mom was prepared to inflict some righteous violence of her own in order to protect her family from the stranger who accosted them in a parking garage. Now King is in the hospital and awaiting charges while her family is safe and sound, which is about as happy an ending as a story like this can have. As we head into National Defensive Gun Use Awareness Month, this is definitely a story Second Amendment advocates should be sharing, especially with groups like Moms Demand Action working hard to ensure that women like this armed citizen can’t protect their kids with a gun of their own.