While guns get all the bad press these days, there’s something terrifying about a maniac with a blade. Maybe it’s because Hollywood has us all thinking gunshot wounds are clean, almost sterile, while blades kill with horrible messes. Maybe it’s something else. I honestly don’t know.

What I do know is that a guy wielding a hatchet is the kind of scenario that I like to think I train for but don’t think would really happen.

For one Arizona woman, however, it apparently did.

The Tucson Police Department said officers responded to the area of south 6th Avenue and east Pennsylvania Drive around 8:40 p.m. for a report of a shooting. Police arrived at the scene and located a man on the ground with an obvious gunshot wound, TPD said.

Officers provided aid to the man before paramedics arrived. He was transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, TPD said.

Police said the woman who shot the man stayed on scene and complied with police.

Investigators said the woman was leaving a store in the 4400 block of south 6th Avenue. She entered her vehicle and as she attempted to close the door the man approached her and demanded her car keys while holding a hatchet.

A carjacker with a hatchet.

And the alleged carjacker got shot for his trouble. I find I am unable to muster any sympathy for the guy. Not that I tried, mind you. If he did what he’s accused of then he got what he deserved.

It should be noted that the man is still alive. What that means is that when anti-gunners present their statistics claiming that self-defense isn’t that common–statistics that only count self-defense fatalities–this is one that won’t be in that number. After all, if the guy doesn’t have life-threatening injuries, he should recover.

He should take this opportunity to consider his life choices, however. A bullet wound could just as easily have been fatal, so this is an invitation to change is (alleged) ways. For example, he should probably stop trying to jack people’s cars while using something that’s only generally a viable weapon in a horror movie where the killer covers his face with some kind of mask.

Once he learns that lesson, he should start working on not stealing cars at all. Keep going down that road and maybe he’ll stop being an alleged scumbag criminal.

Here’s hoping.

I’m very glad the woman is unharmed. It sounds like she did everything right from the minimal description we have. She took down the bad guy and made sure to cooperate with police. That always looks better for the armed citizen if at all possible.

She also has the added bonus of having ended the threat without the loss of life.

While it’s easy for people to sit back and think it would be better if she’d killed the scumbag, the act of taking a life often comes with a lot of psychological baggage that few of us are really ready for.

What matters is that she’s safe and sound and the bad guy gets to explain himself to the legal system.