When you’re talking about visitors, there’s an idea that you want them to feel welcome. You want them to go home and tell them how awesome their visit to your locale was. The idea is that if they do that, their friends may plan trips and you get the economic benefits of tourism.

Sometimes, a warm welcome is the wrong thing to give. Kind of like this New Zealander.

Troy George Skinner, 25, arrived at the girl’s home in Richmond, Virginia last Friday, while armed with a knife, pepper spray and duct tape, according to Goochland County police.

He had smashed the glass door and was reaching inside to unlock it when the girl’s mother fired her handgun, striking him in the neck. He survived.

Skinner had first met the girl on Discord, a platform and chat site for gamers. After several months, she stopped talking to him, despite Skinner’s attempts to continue contact.

“He was not invited here, he was not expected here, he had been told in the past that this daughter no longer wished to communicate with him,” said Goochland Sheriff James Agnew at a news conference on Monday.

Welcome to America, Jackwagon.

As a father, this troubles me to a significant extent. We’ve all heard the horror stories of predators trying to lure their targets somewhere through internet contact, but this takes it to a whole new level.

The mother says she was unaware of the communication, and there doesn’t seem to be an indication of how Skinner got the girl’s address–and is anyone else skeeved out by the guy being named “Skinner?”–but clearly, she gave him enough of something so he could figure it out.

Folks, don’t assume your kids know to not share personal information. Just don’t. Teach them and use this as a cautionary tale if you need to so they understand that it can get ugly out there. They also need to be made aware that even minor comments may be enough to track them down if they’re not careful. It really doesn’t take much, especially for someone obsessed enough to travel all the way from New Zealand to apparently kidnap a young girl.

Hell, my son doesn’t use his own name anywhere if he can, hiding behind the old-school internet handle he chose a while back. I’m proud of that, to be honest.

Luckily for this young girl, her mother had a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it.

That probably wasn’t the welcome he was hoping for, but who gives a damn? He might have gotten away with that in New Zealand, but not in the United States. We’re armed, we’re willing to shoot people, and we’re kind of proud of that little fact.

In fact, this kind of reminds of the Will Smith kind of welcome.

Just replace “Earth” with “Virginia.”

Virginia may be for lovers, but that also includes protective mothers and their firearms. Clearly.

I can’t wait for anti-gun activists to try and claim you don’t need a firearm in a case like this. Think any will even try?