There is probably more than one side to that story. There is a chance the guy was so afraid of being Zerged that he pulled a Goetz. Fear often makes people see threats that don't actually exist. Either way I'm glad nobody died. Toss a gun into the mix and things might have ended up much uglier.

Look up the Universalist congregation and how they handled it when a guy threatened them with a shotgun. Completely unarmed a half dozen men rushed him. One died when he took one to the chest but the rest of them wrestled him to the ground and took away the gun. Breaking his arm in the process. Hard to imagine it turning out any better if someone had pulled out a pistol. A shootout with the congregation and a choir full of kids in the middle is an invitation to a bloodbath. One dead, one wounded and a lunatic hyped up on talk radio being led away in handcuffs may be as good as it gets.

The point I'm trying to make here is that firearms aren't magical. Yes, sometimes, they may deter a crime, limit harm and lower the body count. But they are easy to misuse even when the person is trained and operating in good faith. Near everything in movies or on TV about guns, self defense and crime is wrong. When guns are misused because the person misread the situation or was operating from media stereotypes or popular mythology, jingoism, or bumper sticker philosophy they make things worse.