Armed Security Guards at Church?

Discussion in 'The Lounge - Off Topic' started by tripwire45, Dec 11, 2007.

  1. tripwire45
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    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    I know this will seem odd to some. There was a recent killing spree by an individual at both a Christian missionary training group and a "mega-church", both in Colorado. Apparently, a former student at the missionary school who had been "kicked out" for "(mental) health reasons" a few years back, had nursed a grudge and decided to express it through homicide.

    He was stopped at the mega-church in Colorado Springs, CO by an *armed* security guard who shot the suspect several times. Ultimately, it was ruled that the shooter killed himself after he was wounded by the guard by shooting himself in the head.

    While I'm glad this guy was stopped and am sorry about the victims and their families, since *when* did churches start recruiting volunteer security guards and harming them with handguns??? There are places that are far more crime ridden than super huge churches that are only allowed to have unarmed security guards (such as the shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska where recently another shooter gunned down innocent people). Has anybody heard of such a thing before? How often are people attacked at church that would cause anyone to even think of bringing on armed volunteers (and they're "volunteers" to boot)?

    Color me incredulous.

    Here's the link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071211/ap_on_re_us/church_shootings
     
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  2. Theprof

    Theprof Petabyte Poster

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    To be honest I've never heard of that before. It does seem unusual to have a security guard a church at least I've never seen a security guard a church.
     
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  3. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

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    I hadn't heard of it either, but after what I've seen from some of these "super" churches where they have 10's of thousands of people coming to multiple services every weekend in a big city, I can't say I'm surprised at it.

    Those super large churches seem to pander more to "God's gonna give you what you want" and "It doesn't matter how you live or what you believe because you're going to heaven", so that they would fear that someone unstable might want to take revenge because "God didn't give them what they wanted". And, with the huge numbers of people they have coming to services the chances that someone is going to be unstable and more than a little nutso is pretty good.

    Also, a lot of the mega churches have people who go out and get the homeless to come to church. That's a good idea, but a lot of homeless people are mentally ill, so some type of precaution has to be taken.

    Like I said, all in all, I'm not really surprised. If you have 40,000 people showing up what's the odds that some of them are going to be a little more than strange? I'd say it's pretty good odds on that happening.
     
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  4. tripwire45
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    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    It just astonishes me the people volunteer to be armed guards at these institutions. I hope the "volunteers" have some sort of background in law enforcement or handling hand guns. I've just never heard of such a thing before. When I flew into Germany in 1985 to vacation in Europe, I saw soldiers armed with uzis and was kind of surprised, but I understood the reason for it and it's not like terrorist acts hadn't occurred at airports before or sense, but why would people, even at these "super churches" think they'd ever have to use deadly force to deal with a problem? Of course, they ended up having one (though oddly enough, there must have been hundreds of churches within a 50 mile radius that were smaller and wouldn't have had armed guards...why pick this one?).

    I don't know if I'd want to go to one of these churches. Actually, I have issues with megachurches for the reasons Freddy mentions...long on bringing in the numbers, short on sticking to Biblical principles. Oh well...a discussion for another day.
     
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  5. Phoenix
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    Phoenix 53656e696f7220 4d6f64

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    I saw that in the local rag last night, I assumed it was an off duty security guard and she wasn't attached to the actual church other than being there, didnt realise she was hired by the church! lol
     
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  6. newkoba

    newkoba Byte Poster

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    all i'll say is the 2nd amendment works.
     
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