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Russell wrote:

fickman wrote:....and it doesn't give them a higher right to protect their own life than the next guy - whether at church or not.

Unfortunately, the law says it does.

dac1842 wrote:Fick,. you have the right to disagree. My conclusions, and statements are based on 15 years of tactical experience and come from not only policies I have helped implement but have been implemented by folks i consider much more qualified than I. What I state is based on experience and keeping the fact the main point is safety of the entire congregation. I carry at my church under the authority of my CHL. However, we are not a mega church, we are still small enough we know most folks in the church. The more people that are present, the more strict the rules have to be in order to prevent total chaos. Not to mention we plan. Several CHL holders responding to the same incident will rarely have a plan.
Another post is right, most peace officers support concealed carry without a doubt. But most who have tactical experience will tell you that in the event of an active shooter event, they would prefer the untrained, and unpracticed to stay low. A trained, practiced response can prevent an escalation, a trained practiced response can prevent a hostage situation, or in the event of a hostage situation prevent an unnecessary death of a hostage.
The other issue that comes up is one that without knowing each person that carries, you don't know how accomplished a shooter they may be, do they maintain their weapon. If you polled all CHL holders and they were all honest, my guess is that 80% have not shot their weapon since the CHL class, most have not cleaned their weapons since the CHL class. Is this the person you want making a life or death decision? The other thing that is really scarey and this is based on studies, is that 50-60% of persons who face a fight or flight event will freeze and do nothing, another 20% will panic. Studies show that only about 10% of the population will make the decision to act. The question now becomes of that 10%, how many of them will react properly? That question we dont know until the smoke clears and the body count is taken.

The point is this, at a small to moderate sized church the CHL response is necessary and advantagous. The bigger the church and the bigger the Law Enforcement prescence at a large to mega church the CHL response becomes a lesser benefit and actually increases risk. Many on here will take issue with that, that is my opinion and those that dont agree, have that right, that is what makes us Americans. I have spoken to the directors of security at churches of all sizes. Most of them state the only reason they have not posted is that the pastor does not want to upset those that carry. The reason most diretors, (most directors are active LEO, one I have interviewed is FBI) would post ( at the larger mega churches) is for the reasons I stated. They want a controlled,trained response. I am not against CHL at all, I am for letting those that are trained to handle these rare events, handle them.
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