Normally, if someone uses a weapon to protect their family from a dangerous animal, they’re hailed as a hero. After all, they’ve saved lives, right?

However, an Illinois man has been arrested after he did precisely that.

A Rockford man allegedly shot and killed the family dog in an effort to prevent his child from being attacked, and investigators allegedly found a cache of guns and drugs during the investigation and arrested him.

According to Rockford Police, officers were summoned to the 500 block of 8th Street around 7:40 p.m. on Tuesday for a reported shooting. Police learned that Terrance Goston, 28, shot and killed his dog after his child had been bitten by the animal, in an attempt to stop the attack.

During the investigation, police say they found a total of 8 guns in Goston’s possession, 2 of which had defaced serial numbers, along with various ammunition, and narcotics.

But why were police looking in the first place?

Well, since one of many charges against Goston includes possession of a firearm by a felon, that might just do it. We know that weapon choices for felons are extremely limited, and for a reason. Guns are pretty much a no-go for them, mostly because so many of them go on to commit future criminal acts. Further, the fact that he also had two weapons with defaced serial numbers suggests that he wasn’t exactly a reformed criminal, either.

Of course, the fact that he was also charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance with Intent to Deliver also suggests that he wasn’t all that reformed.

Goston was also charged with cruelty to animals, which raises my eyebrow a bit. If the charge stems from him shooting the animal, it’s probably not justified. If it stems from some other action such as how he treated the animal beforehand, then sure.

Still, we normally see cases like this and chalk it up to a good guy with a gun saving a life.

That may still apply in some ways. After all, if the story is true, he may have saved his child’s life. However, it also sounds like Goston wasn’t a good guy. After all, defaced serial numbers usually mean the guns were stolen from law-abiding citizens who had lawfully purchased these firearms, only to have them taken and sold to lowlife criminals.

Of course, these are just allegations against Goston. He is afforded the benefit of being presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.

Either way, it looks like there’s more to this story than what’s showing up in this small news story, but the high points seem to be that even bad people can use a good for noble purposes, and that’s not such a bad thing to talk about.

After all, it just goes to show you that it’s not the gun that’s either good or bad. It’s a tool, and as such, it’s neutral with regard to the motivations of man. It does what it’s made to do. Goston likely uses a gun for his alleged illegal dealings, but even he can use it to save a life.

Imagine how it works when a non-criminal has a gun.