Anderson, SC – A mother of three young children shot a man who had kicked in the front door despite the mother’s warning she was carrying a gun.

Ashley Jones said she was home when she heard someone banging on her door at about 6 a.m. Thursday, according to WSPA.

Jones’ three children were sleeping at the time.

Jones said she didn’t see anyone when she looked out a window but heard people talking in front of the house. She called 911 and then went and got her gun.

She said that she walked downstairs with her gun she saw a strange man knocking on a window by the front door.

The armed mother told the man who was banging on her door, “I have a gun. I will shoot you. Do not come into my house.”

“He was like, ‘this is my house, let me in. I’m not going to hurt you’ kind of thing, and I was like ‘What do you want?'” Jones told WSPA.

She said the man and a woman went to the back of the house and tried to enter through the back door. Then, they went to the garage and then tried coming back to the front door.

At that point, the man kicked in the front door and Jones said she shot the man who then ran off.

“Something just came over me, and I got calm. My heart slowed down and I got focused. I told myself if he comes in here, you can’t let him get past your doorstep. You have three young children to protect,” Jones said. “Any mother is going to protect her kid any way she can. And that’s what I did,” Jones told WSPA.

Jones’ surveillance video showed the man reacting to being shot in the shoulder and then running off. Jones said the police arrived and arrested the suspect, who was taken to the hospital, according to WSPA.

The suspect’s injuries were not life threatening.

Jones had just bought a gun a few months earlier and was hesitant at first to be a gun owner and said she hoped she never would have to use it.

She trained with her firearm and taught her children to stay away from the gun.

But after Thursday’s break-in, she said she was glad to be a gun owner.

“If I didn’t have a weapon, I wouldn’t have been able to fight him off,” Jones said, according to Fox News.

Anderson County Sheriff Chad McBride said police haven’t found any connection between the suspect and the homeowner. Sheriff McBride praised Jones for protecting her family and her home.

You can see surveillance video of the incident below: