Church Security question

[firecadet613]

I lived in Lombard……

I'm sorry....I grew up in the north suburbs.

Glad I'm no longer there!

is that an "article of faith" though or something you have intimate knowledge of?

I can tell you it won't be at a Catholic church, everyone I've heard of is at a church similar to what I described earlier.

Wow. This has been an interesting thread. There is no security to my knowledge at any of the churches I attend. There are probably those who conceal carry without the knowledge of others. My first rule of gun safety has always been "don't go anywhere you need a gun". I realize nowadays, that means you have to stay home to some degree, but I never thought it necessary to carry a gun into church. I have a music ministry and go into many local churches of different faith. I may be strange to others, but I don't intend to ever carry a weapon other than my Bible into church. I also don't travel into really large cities either. I've only seen one incident in all my years, and that guy was just mouthy. Once a couple of us approached him, he calmed down and left the building before we got to him.

Carry, everywhere. Even when I was serving...

Exactly. But usually the gun is on the desk next to my keyboard.

Slacker. I work from home and carry IWB at my desk.

 

[Quiet Observer]

Im a Methodist. We are by doctrine, no guns in church.

Luckily our Pastor is smart enough to know that is ridiculous and we ignore it. And she chooses to be willfully ignorant of what the safety team does. She essentially stands with her fingers in her ears saying "la la la I cant hear you!" and we make it a point to not keep her in the loop as to what we are doing. Her involvement is strictly need to know.

Is her last name Shultz or did she have a recent ancestor that was a guard at a stalag in WW2?

 

[Cameramonkey]

Slacker. I work from home and carry IWB at my desk.

It is required that we moderate INGO pantsless. My undies wont support my holster.

 

[Ziggidy]

It is required that we moderate INGO pantsless. My undies wont support my holster.

 

[Cameramonkey]

View attachment 335962

At least I'm not putting mine in my avatar like @printcraft

 

[Hoosierdood]

As a former pastor, I can tell you that every single time I was on the stage preaching, I was armed. There were at least a half dozen people in the congregation who were also armed. Our church was small, about 50-60 people, so there was no formal safety team, but I had code words with a few of them who I knew were trained to alert them to a potential threat since I would be the first to see it.

Now I live in Michigan, and attend a church that is around 500-600, between 2 services. Can't carry in a church in Michigan without leadership permission, and our church doesn't give anyone permission. I think its more of an issue of liability since I know our pastor is very pro-gun. Regardless, we do have cameras in every area of the church and a safety team of 4-5 people with radios every week. We usually have 2 posted at the entrance to the auditorium, 1 patrolling the foyer and main entrance, and 1 or more patrolling the hallways and side entrances. We have a limited access childrens ministry area that requires check-in and check-out with photo ID. We also lock all entrances once the service starts, and greeters at the main entrance will open the doors for the late stragglers.

 

[printcraft]

 

[Ziggidy]

At least I'm not putting mine in my avatar like @printcraft

It’s tiny and easily covered.

 

[Ziggidy]

Our church has a sign on the door that it is ok with constitutional carry within the church, Good and bad. We also have armed security, at least 2 at all times. One inside the sanctuary and one walking halls. We use radios with ear pieces for security and all children’s ministry leaders. It is mandatory to carry if on security. We also know who routinely carries.

I pray nothing ever happens to test our security plans. It’s sad we have to think this way, but welcome to the world.

Just a word of caution. If you have a security team and expect the church insurance to cover any liabilities in a shooting, buyer beware. I seriously recommend checking the other options out there but be careful and find one that specifically covers shootings for church security; make them put it in writing. As I said before, not all will and I only found one that’s does. Maybe that has changed recently, I do not know.

 

[DadSmith]

Real church shooting.
A lot of shots and reloading involved.

 

[Ziggidy]

I have never been in a shootout or any tense situation like that. Why did it take so long to take out the shooter?

 

[92FSTech]

Real church shooting.
A lot of shots and reloading involved.

Wow. Hard to tell exactly what happened in that video, or who was in what role, but what it looks like to me:

1. Initial officer working security in the foyer (on his cell phone leaning against the wall at the beginning of the video) missed a very close range shot which would have ended the fight at the very beginning, and then went and hid in a closet for the rest of the engagement.

2. Security guard lady (?) in the blue shirt with the reflective stripe for some reason comes out of her office, wanders around in the middle of a gunfight, then goes back in her office??? It ever fails, there's always gotta be at least one idiot getting in the way.

3. Suit guy (off duty officer?) has some big brass ones, but missed some opportunities to end it quicker due to poor accuracy. To be fair, he was going up against a suspect with a rifle armed only with a handgun, and that's a bad place to be. Some of those shots looked to be pretty long, and under pressure. I've never had to do what he did, so I won't throw any stones or pretend that I'd do better. Good on him for staying in the fight until the end and being prepared with a reload.

4. Not sure where the kid got hit, but that's the saddest part of this whole mess. Poor kid didn't get to pick his mother, and it's not his fault she was a psychotic POS.

 

[ditcherman]

Not wanting to pass judgment on anyone involved, but if I stay in the closet or around the corner like that I expect you all to come raid my house and take every gun away that I have and b****-slap me silly.

So many missed opportunities to end it.

Jack Wilson was not present.
Be more like Jack.

 

[92FSTech]

I have never been in a shootout or any tense situation like that. Why did it take so long to take out the shooter?

Because thats how long it took to get a hit on something important and put her down. I actually thought the response was pretty quick...almost immediate, in fact. For all the first officer's failures, at least he got her attention early on and kept her focused on him so others could escape.

The second guy was responding from a distance, had to deal with an unpredictable moving target who was shooting back at him with a rifle from behind cover (the corner), and he's taking shots at 20+ yards with a handgun. It's impossible to tell from the video...some of his earlier rounds may have made contact, just not in body parts that would incapacitate her. Either way, he got handed a crap sandwich and dealt with it until it was finished. I don't have a problem with him using the hallway for cover...running straight at her would have likely gotten him shot and left the whole building unprotected.

On duty PD got there pretty quick, too, and in numbers. The guys on scene were effective at keeping her busy until backup got there. Imagine the outcome if she'd had free reign to wander that building with her rifle.

 

[ECS686]

This was a perfect example of Ed Monk saying of “Time = math”

Bottom line while tactics could be criticized they were on the shooter pretty quick and that is what kept it from being a double digit victim count.

Just shows there is more to it than what’s a good handgun. Marksmanship and high proficiency should be up there as well. Gun alone will not ward off evil!

 

[DadSmith]

Wow. Hard to tell exactly what happened in that video, or who was in what role, but what it looks like to me:

1. Initial officer working security in the foyer (on his cell phone leaning against the wall at the beginning of the video) missed a very close range shot which would have ended the fight at the very beginning, and then went and hid in a closet for the rest of the engagement.

2. Security guard lady (?) in the blue shirt with the reflective stripe for some reason comes out of her office, wanders around in the middle of a gunfight, then goes back in her office??? It ever fails, there's always gotta be at least one idiot getting in the way.

3. Suit guy (off duty officer?) has some big brass ones, but missed some opportunities to end it quicker due to poor accuracy. To be fair, he was going up against a suspect with a rifle armed only with a handgun, and that's a bad place to be. Some of those shots looked to be pretty long, and under pressure. I've never had to do what he did, so I won't throw any stones or pretend that I'd do better. Good on him for staying in the fight until the end and being prepared with a reload.

4. Not sure where the kid got hit, but that's the saddest part of this whole mess. Poor kid didn't get to pick his mother, and it's not his fault she was a psychotic POS.

That poor boy I seen that, and wonder if she didn't kill him herself. Being on the crazy train, and all.
I'm sure they can review their actions, and hope to respond better if there is ever a next time.
As you said can't fault them for their actions.
Did the guy hiding in that room get hit? Or was just hiding?

This is why you need to train for those longer shots, and have a firearm capable, and you have the capability to shoot long distances with the firearm you intend to carry.
It definitely did seem that the adrenaline was pumping. And the good guy with a gun in the suit kept it from getting worse than it was.
He kept her attention on him, made a good reload also.
Just showed me that carrying my spare magazine isn't a waste of time if I every have a situation as this man had.

 

[SheepDog4Life]

I dont disagree.

Just suggesting it as a good starting point. Obviously shooting better is preferred. But at least having your team shooting to the same standards as LEO is a good start. The major point being if they cant even qualify to the pitiful ILEA standards, they have no business carrying on your safety team. Its not so much a marksmanship designation as much as it is a liability disqualifier.

And if you want to improve, change the passing score so that all hits have to be inside the inner rectangle. Here's why:

I have lots of the FPF-3 targets I found at action target so I built templates to create the G17 hit boxes to adapt these. (long story) When superimposed, the inner rectangle of the g17 covers all the internal goodies of the torso triangle. So if you can keep all of the scored hits inside the small rectangle Its an improvement.

The bottom of the internal g17 rectangle stops about the midpoint of the barrel. Its not perfect, but better than the outer box of the g17 which is about 1/2" outside the toso box on the target below.

Thank you, CM! My search for the better SD target has ended... get the FPF-3 and draw the internal G-17 rectangle for the upper center "pipes and pumps".

The pelvis outlines for "butters" stops and profile heads are gravy!

I had been thinking about this IALEFI-QRQT target for when my supply of B27s runs out, but just couldn't shake the "bad guy won't be wearing a B8 target" voice in my head.

Just me, lol!

Otherwise, a nice target.

Respectfully that whole blanket statement of “center mass” as a term is antiquated and does not work. What LE and everyone that is a serious student has learned the last 4 decades only Upper thoracic hits in a large grapefruit size group (8” or NRA B8 repair center) and an orange size in the eye box around the whole head) are the only places that hit that consistently shut down the threat immediately.

EC, thank you for your comments on my post over on the Paul Harrell thread... going away from the B27s for handgun SD practice.

 

[92FSTech]

This is why you need to train for those longer shots, and have a firearm capable, and you have the capability to shoot long distances with the firearm you intend to carry.

This is true, but training only goes so far. There are very few range facilities that would allow for that kind of training, and even LE doesn't get much of it, unless they're SWAT. Force-on-force involves sim guns, which suck for accuracy and are horribly unreliable. Also, no matter how realistic you make the training, the trainees still know their life and the lives of others aren't on the line with sims, so the stress level isn't the same.

I'm very confident I could make that shot on the square range, even under time pressure. But in the real world, outgunned on an unpredictable moving target that's trying to kill me, with backstop concerns and other people running around? I don't know, and probably never will until I'm in that position myself. If I'm lucky, that'll never happen.

 

[Wstar425]

So, did I set a INGO record? Been posting here less than 2 days and already hacking folks off. I did Not join INGO to cause issues, so if anyone can rationally explain what I have done that has clearly upset someone - I’m all ears. As far as I can tell the vast majority were more than willing to share there opinions and experiences. To which I am grateful. I’ve learned quite a bit from people that obviously have vastly more knowledge in this area than I.
For clarity …. I asked a simple question and sincerely appreciate most everyone’s input. I do wonder why my simple inquiry has caused such a problem for some?

Try mentioning open carry on SigTalk if you want to see the Interdweeb light up!! You’re just at a dull glow here.

Don’t ask me how I know.

 

[DadSmith]

This is true, but training only goes so far. There are very few range facilities that would allow for that kind of training, and even LE doesn't get much of it, unless they're SWAT. Force-on-force involves sim guns, which suck for accuracy and are horribly unreliable. Also, no matter how realistic you make the training, the trainees still know their life and the lives of others aren't on the line with sims, so the stress level isn't the same.

I'm very confident I could make that shot on the square range, even under time pressure. But in the real world, outgunned on an unpredictable moving target that's trying to kill me, with backstop concerns and other people running around? I don't know, and probably never will until I'm in that position myself. If I'm lucky, that'll never happen.

I can hit a 8" round ar500 steel target at 50yds with my 1911's standing, and given time to aim.
1911 is very accurate platform no question.
Problem is you are not going to have that time, to shoot someone even if they are stationary who is shooting back at you with a rifle. They have the advantage.
Now you put a micro RDS sight on a pistol, and those 50yd shots are faster, possibly more accurate. This is where an RDS would make a huge difference. I'd say 20yds and out an RDS is going to speed up you being on target, and your accuracy will be improved immensely.
Personally I think in this situation ( a crazy with a rifle trying to kill ) an RDS would be a must.