A woman who was attacked in her motel room in what police are calling an act of domestic violence was saved by her 11-year-old son, who shot the attacker and sent him fleeing. 

Police in Charlotte, North Carolina were called to the InTown Suites in West Charlotte late Wednesday evening on reports of a shooting, and when they arrived they were able to piece together the disturbing details of the assault. 

Investigators said a man busted into a hotel room and started attacking the 27-year-old pregnant mom, leaving her with bruises and scratches.

Police said the woman knew her attacker, and it was a domestic violence situation. 

Detectives said the woman’s 11-year-old son saw his mom getting attacked, and the young boy rushed in and shot the intruder.

The suspect and the pregnant woman were taken to the hospital. 

It's absolutely heartbreaking that this child was put in a position where he was forced to shoot someone to protect his own mother and his unborn sibling, and I pray that he's going to get some counseling to help him work through what was undoubtedly an incredibly traumatic situation. 

Police have filed warrants accusing the man of assault by strangulation, assault on an unborn child, and false imprisonment. Authorities say neither the mom nor her son, however, will face criminal charges. 

Under North Carolina law, parents can be charged with a misdemeanor if they store or leave a firearm " in a condition that the firearm can be discharged and in a manner that the person knew or should have known that an unsupervised minor would be able to gain access to the firearm", though there are a few exceptions; including a parent giving permission to access the gun. 

Oddly, while the statute also contains exemptions for minors who obtain the firearm as the "result of an unlawful entry by any person" and for those who use a gun in self-defense, the language doesn't allow for a minor to use a firearm in defense of another person. It probably won't matter in this particular incident, but that's still something that should be addressed by lawmakers going forward. 

While I do believe that parents need to store their guns in a way that their kids can't get ahold of them unsupervised, that doesn't mean I'm in favor of the "one-size-fits-all" storage mandates that the gun control lobby demands. It should be up to parents to decide when their child has demonstrated they're responsible enough to access a gun in the case of a home invasion or, in this case, invading a hotel room. North Carolina's law allows for that flexibility, but that's not the case in every state. In New York, for example, gun owners who live with minors in the home are required to keep their firearms in an "appropriate safe storage depository" or render it "incapable of being fired by use of a gun locking device appropriate to that weapon", period. 

If that was the law in North Carolina, then the victim of this assault could be facing criminal charges today. Worse, if she'd complied with the law police might have rolled up on the scene of a double homicide instead of a domestic assault and justified shooting. 

I'm grateful that wasn't the case here. I just hope that prosecutors do their job and go after the suspect with everything they've got instead of offering him a plea deal that delivers a slap on the wrist instead of the justice he deserves.