There’s a line of thought in gun circles that one should avoid places where trouble might happen. This isn’t exactly terrible advice, in and of itself. However, trouble can happen in all kinds of places and it’s impossible to know just where it’ll strike.

That’s a lesson one armed citizen recently learned.

A customer eating in a McDonald’s parking lot shot and killed a man accused of approaching his vehicle and attacking him, according to a Florida sheriff’s office.

The customer was eating in his vehicle outside of a McDonald’s in Port St. John around 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 11 when a man came up to his vehicle and started hitting him in an “unprovoked attack,” according to a news release from the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office.

The customer pulled out a gun from inside his vehicle and shot the man once, the sheriff’s office said. First responders took the man to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

According to law enforcement, the offender apparently thought the armed citizen was someone else.

Frankly, I’m not sure how that’s supposed to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. Sure, it wasn’t just some random attack, but it doesn’t change anything about what happened.

As for avoiding places trouble can happen, I wouldn’t necessarily think McDonald’s would be one of those places. I mean, it’s a bad place, but only because their food kind of sucks (except for the McRib, which is OK).

It’s not where you expect to be attacked.

That’s especially true of this armed citizen.

Regardless of who the bad guy thought he was, it’s apparently the good guy here had every reason to believe his life was in danger. I mean, you’re sitting there, eating your Big Mac, then all of a sudden, you find yourself being assaulted by some dude you’ve never seen before in your life.

Obviously, you’d think this dude is crazy and will probably beat you to death if you don’t do something.

So, he drew his weapon and did something, ending the threat permanently.

Some will likely criticize his actions, but I can’t imagine much I’d have done differently with the information available. Well, other than not going to McDonald’s.

Meanwhile, there are those who would prefer this guy have been beaten to death, unable to meet the naked aggression of such an attack with an appropriate level of force. They don’t think we should have guns outside the home and we definitely shouldn’t be able to carry them in our day-to-day lives.

This instance is a prime example of why they’re dead wrong.

Instead of talking about a man beaten to death in a Florida McDonald’s parking lot, we’re talking about a dead bad guy.

“But he thought the dude was someone else.”

It was still an attack out of the blue, which suggests this was someone who intended to severely injure someone. The only difference is that by picking the wrong guy, the assailant picked a target that could fight back.

And he paid the price.