Loganville, Georgia (CNN) -- This is not a movie. There's no dramatic music in the background. A happy ending, far from a guarantee.
The concern in Donnie Herman's voice was clear as day. So was his stress. With two telephones to his ear, he listened to his wife, Melinda, as she fled into an attic of their Loganville home. With her: Her two 9-year-old children and a loaded .38 revolver.
In the house: An intruder with a crowbar.
On another line was the 911 operator Donnie Herman had called for help. Herman's words to his wife, as he sat helplessly, an hour away from the home, were recorded.
"Stay in the attic," he instructed her, calmly.
"He's in the bedroom," she told him. He repeated the words to the 911 operator.
"Shh. Relax," Herman said, trying to calm his wife.
Then he instructed her to do what was fast becoming a realistic possibility.
"Melinda -- if he opens up the door, you shoot him! You understand?"
What happened next has made the Hermans the new faces of the right to bear arms.
Melinda Herman fired a six-shot revolver at the intruder, hitting him five times, in his torso and in his face. Surprisingly, he managed to flee.
Gun rights groups say this shows that law-abiding citizens should be allowed to buy their weapon of choice and as big a magazine or ammunition clip as they like.
They remind people that Melinda Herman had only a six-shot revolver.
"It's a good thing she wasn't facing more attackers. Otherwise she would have been in trouble and she would have run out of ammunition," said Erich Pratt, director of communications for the Gun Owners of America.
"She shot him five times and he still didn't drop. This is going to endanger people's safety."