Church is considering posting 30.06

[austin]

One more thing, the Bible has many verses on being armed in Church. There is not one saying you should be disarmed.

[dac1842]

While we do not intend on posting our church, we do not want anyone responding to an incident that does not practice and train with us.

Have you told them that? If not, you might consider telling them as some will surely respond in the event of an active shooter in the building.

The ones we know have CHL's yes. We have asked them to remain seated or down, and react only if they are in immediate danger or if someone near them is and we are not yet on scene. We will not tell someone they cannot defend themselves. . But with our active shooter plan, and they stragic placement of our people, it is unlikely that an active shooter will be able to get far undetected.

[heliguy972]

Give this to your pastor....

Terror In The Sanctuary
By David Van Biema Monday, Sep. 20, 1999Print

Here is the way one survivor tells it. When Larry Gene Ashbrook walked into the church sanctuary with his guns--a 9-mm semiautomatic and a .380-cal. one--he paused. He had already started a shooting spree outside that left two dead. But once inside he was approached by one of the teens who had been singing along with a Christian rock 'n' roll praise band. What the youngster offered the black-jacketed killer was heaven, saying, "You need Jesus." Ashbrook, 47, answered, "It's all crap, what you believe!" It was only then that he opened up on the over 100 defenseless worshippers, killing five more, wounding seven, creating martyrs.

Last week's massacre at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, may not have happened quite that way. That's a version being offered by someone who was there, but it's unconfirmed. Yet even if it is pious invention, it gives a glimpse of the way some evangelical Christians, children and adults alike, are thinking these days about the string of killings around the U.S. in which they have been victims. Last week's toll was added to the count of Christian teens killed at Columbine and three students killed at a 1997 prayer circle in West Paducah, Ky. Many evangelical leaders have begun to see "committed Christians" as the latest victims of hate crimes of the sort perpetrated upon blacks, women and gays. They have also begun to view those attacks in terms of the history of their faith--as acts of Satan, and as part of a persecution that stretches back to the earliest days of Christianity, during which countless believers suffered and died for professing their faith.

It's an explanation that allows the bereaved a certainty and solace in the face of a horrible riddle. And faced with the same endless series of senseless bloodlettings, even more secular precincts of America have been giving such claims a respectful hearing. After the shootings a moist-eyed George W. Bush said, "There seems to be a wave of evil passing through America." Today show's Katie Couric, interviewing Wedgwood's pastor, Al Meredith, listened as he offered the standard explanation for the crime: the killer was "deranged and deluded." Then, almost hesitantly, the pastor noted, "There's some possible theological, religious reasons you may not be interested in." Said Couric: "Well, go ahead." And Meredith explained that because of all the seminary students attending Wedgwood, "if I were Satan, and if I were real, and I wanted to deliver a death knell to the kingdom of God, I would target this church."

The man wore jeans and was smoking a cigarette. The first person he shot was Jeff Laster, a seminarian working as a custodian who asked him to put it out. Next was Sydney Browning, the children's choir director, resting on a sofa in the foyer, followed by a young man who had been selling Christian CDs. In the sanctuary, the shooter found a roomful of adolescents, happily celebrating that morning's observance of See You at the Pole, an annual national event in which Christian teens gather around their school flagpoles before classes to pray. A band called Forty Days was playing a song titled Alle, alleluia, when Ashbrook was allegedly invited to accept the Lord. He moved to the back of the sanctuary, banged a door to get his audience's attention, and started firing again.

At first, some of the teens thought it was a joke, a skit "to remind everyone how precious life was," says one of their parents. A youngster saw the boy next to him grab his waist. "It's just a paint gun," claimed the one who got hit. Both of them watched red ooze from a real-looking wound. "It stings," said the injured boy, still not understanding what had happened to him. People dove behind pews. Mary Beth Talley, 17, noticed that her friend Heather McDonald was not hiding. McDonald has Down syndrome. Talley threw herself on McDonald. Ashbrook fired. Even after Talley was shot, she continued to comfort McDonald, trying to keep her quiet. Talley survived with minor wounds.

The murderer paced and yelled at his victims to "be still." He shot and reloaded, shot and reloaded. Only after he pulled a small pipe bomb from his pocket, lit it and rolled it down the aisle--it exploded harmlessly--did those who could make a break for the doors. Then Ashbrook strolled to a back pew, sat down and shot himself fatally in the temple.

The police and other authorities who searched his home and his life in the next 72 hours found plenty of clues to a deranged mind. The walls had holes punched in them; the toilets had been filled with concrete; a set of journals dating back a decade itemized plots against him. Neighbors would later report about his ranting and exposing himself. Some speculated that what finally unhinged him was the death in July of his 85-year-old father, who had been the unemployed Ashbrook's sole means of support. What no one found was any connection to the Wedgwood church or its congregation.

Some, however, believe they have an inkling. They suspect that in a secularized America in which they are a minority, evangelical Christians are being martyred for their beliefs. "I think that people are gonna have to count the cost of pursuing their faith in God," says Toby McKeehan, a member of dc Talk, one of the most popular Christian bands. "Something we thought was [just] history--people being killed because they had faith, people being martyred--is suddenly happening before our very eyes." Evangelicals have always admired martyrs, from those murdered by Diocletian to slain missionaries. But interest over the past year has exploded as Christians have made up an increasing proportion of the victims of mass murders. Last month McKeehan and his bandmates published Jesus Freaks, a catalog of martyrs past and present, written for teens. But the most talked-about new account of martyrdom is She Said Yes, the moving, nuanced story of Littleton victim Cassie Bernall by her mother Misty. Stores have bought 200,000 copies of the book, which came out last Monday, three days before the Fort Worth shooting. In the evangelical world, Cassie is almost universally considered a martyr. The Fort Worth dead, although their stories are not quite as pointed, will probably be seen similarly.

[CainA]

give this to him too:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,506820,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

5 Shot at First Baptist Church in Illinois

A gunman reportedly stepped on stage at First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill. and opened fire, shooting five people, including the pastor, police said.

Parishioners charged the gunman, who was reportedly stabbed by one of them. The suspect is in police custody.

The church's pastor was shot three times, police said.

The pastor reportedly welcomed the man onto the stage before he started shooting. It was not clear if the two knew each other or if the gunman was a parishioner.

Six people, two in critical condition, were taken to a local hospital.

Police said parishioners were in prayer at 8:55 a.m. when the incident happened.

The church has an average attendance of more than 1,200 and was officially organized on March 4, 1945, according to their Web site.

-Cain

[KD5NRH]

Someone (I don't remember who) once said, "The bad guy is the one murdering people, the good guy is the one defending himself."
if only all things were that simple...

With armed CHLs, by the time the police (a) get called (b) dispatch officers (c) officers arrive (d) officers actually enter, the bad guy will be the body with entry wounds from multiple angles.

With disarmed CHLs in the congregation, he'll be the corpse with the self-inflicted wound after he finishes with everybody else.

[Samurai Blur]

Someone (I don't remember who) once said, "The bad guy is the one murdering people, the good guy is the one defending himself."
if only all things were that simple...

With armed CHLs, by the time the police (a) get called (b) dispatch officers (c) officers arrive (d) officers actually enter, the bad guy will be the body with entry wounds from multiple angles.

With disarmed CHLs in the congregation, he'll be the corpse with the self-inflicted wound after he finishes with everybody else.

Yeah, Statistics have shown that the majority of people who walk in a building and shoot everyone up, pick someplace where they KNOW no one inside can carry a gun and never exchange fire with police. They almost always kill themselves. Or atleast that's what a video on school shootings I recently watched said.

[Frost]

I cant even imagine the ridiculous scenarios these people must be thinking that are some how worse then an active shooter going through their church unchallenged.

[Liberty]

He was challenged and stopped by the unarmed parishionors, although they would have had more success if they were allowed to be armed

[Keith B]

New stand alone thread started on the church shooting here http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_F ... 26&t=23113" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Oldgringo]

Samurai Blur wrote:

...Yeah, Statistics have shown that the majority of people who walk in a building and shoot everyone up, pick someplace where they KNOW no one inside can carry a gun and never exchange fire with police. They almost always kill themselves. Or at least that's what a video on school shootings I recently watched said...

The BG's suicide will be very small comfort to those shot, and their loved ones, before the BG dispatches himself. I don't think God wants me and my family to spend a lot of time in a 30.06 posted building.

[Samurai Blur]

The BG's suicide will be very small comfort to those shot, and their loved ones, before the BG dispatches himself. I don't think God wants me and my family to spend a lot of time in a 30.06 posted building.

Despite the fact that I'm not concerned with what a deity thinks, that's not what I'm saying. I'm trying to make the point that most people who would walk into a building and shoot up a crowd are cowards who pick places where they know no one can carry a concealed handgun and fight back, they kill as many people as possible and then shoot themselves before police confrontation is possible. Which is why I think you all should be able to carry a gun to church. It's the one place you shouldn't have to be afraid.

[srothstein]

Samurai,

While I agree that most of the people who do these types of shootings will not face an armed response, I am not as convinced that they deliberately look for places where the victims will be disarmed.

I think they look for places where there will be large gatherings of people, especially if they have some grudge against the group they have identified. School shootings for example are most often targeted against the school members due to perceived treatment of the shooters.

The coincidence is that most of the places we normally tend to gather have int he past been made victim zones. Schools are victim zones, churches are victim zones (outside Texas but we started that way also), sporting events are victim zones, and most malls have made themselves into victim zones (well, at least the law did not do that).

When you start to study mass shootings, the ones that jump out are the best known due to media, and they were almost all based on some group grudge. Add workplace shootings tot he list and you will start to see the pattern. This makes the ones that do not fit jump out, and there are only two that come quickly to mind (and I am not sure if they fit or not). The first was the shooting at the Amish school in Pennsylvania and the second was the mall shooting in Salt Lake City.

I have not done exhaustive research in this, and I could be wrong, but my initial impression is that the gun free victim zones and the appearance of the shooters is more coincidental than their choice for unarmed victims. It might be that this analysis needs more research so we can argue for or against removing any restrictions on carrying.

[KD5NRH]

While I agree that most of the people who do these types of shootings will not face an armed response, I am not as convinced that they deliberately look for places where the victims will be disarmed.

I think they look for places where there will be large gatherings of people, especially if they have some grudge against the group they have identified.

Lots of mentally unstable people hate gunowners, but when was the last time anybody tried to shoot up an NRA convention?

[Samurai Blur]

It's cool, I haven't done any extensive research either, I was just stating my point of view. I think you make a lot of sense though. When you look at it, it does seem to be that people like that are going to do it because of a grudge and not only because there is a 30.06 sign on the door, but I think it may do a bit of good (even if it's only a little) to make them rethink their actions if they are aware that the building may have armed men and women in it.

[Oldgringo]

Samurai Blur wrote:

...pick places where they know no one can carry a concealed handgun...

My apologogies for a very poorly worded sentence. Your point above is also my point. The cowardly BG's suicide provides no comfort to his/her victims.