Church gunman killed by security guard

[Poiuyt]

(CNN) -- A gunman attacked worshippers at a Colorado Springs, Colorado, megachurch Sunday afternoon, killing one person and wounding four others before being killed by a security staff member, the city's police chief said.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/09/church.shooting/index.html

I don't know about you. but my church doesn't have armed security guards. Or any security guards, for that matter. What have we come to?

[NMDemDist2]

1. no chit!

wow, just wow

:wow:

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ishoutandscream2]

3. You make excellent points

[HughMoran]

7. 10,000 crazies

you said it! :eyes:

[Perky]

29. 10,000 crazy Parishioners?

[XboxWarrior]

4. It's COSprings.....

I was asked to get my VW Bus outta Focus on the Family's parking lot (it was broke down), by two armed security guards...They are just down the street from "New Life".

http://www.coloradoconfidential.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=901

~snip~
t
How Focus on the Family Deals With "Difficult Guests"
by: Cara DeGette
Sun Oct 29, 2006 at 07:32 PM MST

Can you drag 200 pounds for 50 feet horizontally in 20 seconds? Wear a ballistic vest for a full workday? Maintain as many as 2,000 weapons? Train others how to use their firearms? Investigate your coworkers? Assist HR when they are firing employees? Provide a "sympathetic ear" to distraught visitors while enforcing security? Help get rid of explosive devices at the workplace?

If so, Focus on the Family has a job for you. But only if, while filling in as one bad mofo, you are, also naturally, a consistent witness to Jesus Christ who "models a high degree of integrity, ethics, compassion and morals based on Biblical standards."

The Colorado Springs ministry/armory is currently seeking a lead security officer at its world headquarters/compound in Colorado Springs.

The salary is only $34,080 a year. But one of the job perks ? which was initially advertised at the ministry's Website but then mysteriously removed after a reporter made an inquiry -- is to serve as the "liaison" between Focus on the Family and the Air Force Academy, which has invited ministry officials to shoot at its taxfunded rifle range for at least six years.

Air Force Academy spokesman First Lt. John Ross says that plenty of government agencies use its rifle range -- including the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, IRS, Department of the Treasury and the Colorado State Patrol -- but Focus on the Family is the only private organization with clearance. Two security personnel from the ministry, Ross maintains, currently use the facility.

"They're one of the few churches that requires armed guards," he said.

~end snip~

I guess that last statement has changed?

[notadmblnd]

47. Weren't the Branch Davidians torched for stockpiling weapons?

2,000 sure sounds like a stockpile to me.

[ThomWV]

55. Don't you see the difference? The Branch Davidians weren't smart enough to contract it out

The church goers didn't shoot the guy, the contractor did.

[bemildred]

5. It's about the money, eh?

Mega-churches are all about money. Sort of money-churches. So they have to guard the money.

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

19. Yep, pretty much.

A church like that is a cash cow and "worship" house for 10,000+ people to gather in order to feel superior about themselves and look down on others.

I kind of feel bad about the fact I can't work up too much sorrow or sympathy over today's events.

[pingzing58]

6. Many large churches have security watching the parking lot and directing traffic.

[Perky]

30. And alot hire off-duty cops.

[Hoof Hearted]

8. That was the first thing hubby and I thought too! We just looked at each other with our

jaws on the floor.

I looked at him and asked "Did I hear that right? Did they just say the gunman was shot down by the church's armed security guard"?

As a culture, we have officially LOST OUR DAMN MINDS. Armed security guards at church?

I'm quite sure the clinically insane among us who actually believe that the answer is MORE guns have either already chimed in or will soon. So many wannabe cowboy in the white hat fantasies, and not enough psychiatrists to treat them all.

[knitter4democracy]

10. It makes you wonder who they're keeping out.

Or keeping in, I suppose.

I'm sure the homeless, the not quite dressed right, the poor are all kept out so as to not disturb the faithful. :eyes:

[krispos42]

25. Well, they were right, weren't they?

If this had occured at, say, a school with a 500-foot "gun-free zone" around it, I bet there would be a lot more corpses.

What we've come to is that the mass shooting is now part of our popular culture. It's probably going to remain that way for at least a generation.

And most of the shootings are going to occur in places that have big signs up that say "This business does not allow firearms on the premises".

After all, criminals prefer unarmed victims.

I don't know what the answer is. I do know that gun-free zones and trying to reinstate the now-expired and horribly misnamed "Assault Weapons Ban" aren't the answer.

Of course, this is a megachurch. Sunday attendence is probably more than all the people that live in my town combinded, and for that many people you need some sort of security.

[Judi Lynn]

37. The security guards' bibles have asterisks by "Thou shalt not kill" so they can qualify that

suggestion, which, in the case of very important bible thumpers is always open to their review and convenience, as men/women of gawd.

You're right: there AREN'T enough psychiatrists.

[Sanctified]

41. Depends on your bible.

I know Roman Catholics use, "Thou Shalt not Kill" while others use "Thou Shalt not murder". In my opinion self defense is not murder.

[Critters2]

46. The Hebrew says "kill". nt

[Sanctified]

48. Really I thought the Torah text used the word ratsah instead of harag.

[NutmegYankee]

49. The Hebrew says "Murder" n/t

[Mike Daniels]

57. So a guard who has the means to stop a massacre should just stand by and let it happen?

What, pray tell, was the alternative?

Oh yeah, let me guess....shoot to disarm or cripple? That only works in movies and fantasy.

[Redstone]

9. Guns, guns, guns. What does it tell you when there are guns at church?

Redstone

[XboxWarrior]

11. Guns?

Guns, guns, guns. What does it tell you when there are guns at church?

Did the baby Jebus say anything about guns at the church?

I think not, so guns it is!!!!!!!

10,000 members=avg income=100,000x10%=GUNS

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Who would Jesus shoot?

[krispos42]

27. The Jesus that Bush worships loves bustin' caps in evildoers...

See? See? He's got a secular gay-married lesbian wiccan illegal-immigrant progressive who's had an abortion in his sights!!!!

O'Reilly told me so...



:hide:

:rofl:

[Beerboy]

39. Post of the week!

:beer:

[Beerboy]

38. LOL!

The Church of the Gun! Does Security also take collection?:thumbsup:

[slackmaster]

17. It tells me that particular church planned better than most places

:hi:

[QC]

18. Good thing somebody at that church had one.

Otherwise we could very well be reading about a third or fourth shooting by now.

[Beerboy]

36. Well, they are persecuted, so they say. n/t.

[JackBeck]

12. They could have been hired, or maybe armed,

after the Haggard incident.

[Rosemary2205]

14. In my state it's a requirement

we have a mega church that seats more than 10,000 about 20 miles from where I live and someone in my neighborhood is on their board. Any arena in Georgia that seats 6000 or more at one time must have armed security and EMT type personnel standing by from 1 hour before the even starts to 30 minutes after it ends. This church hires off duty cops and a private medical transport firm but they are trained just like regular EMTs.

[Dervill Crow]

15. I remember the term "church family."

Somehow I think mega-churches make baby Jesus cry.

[JVS]

16. ooohhhh oooohhh oooohhhh Mr. Kotter! Mr. Kotter!

This is an example of someon having arms saving innocent people that some people said could NEVER happen in the flamewars after the VA-tech massacres

[MiniMe]

20. If only the parishioners were armed this wouldn't have happened

[Sanctified]

22. One was armed.

And shot the guy which prevented him from killing more.

[MiniMe]

21. How big is the parking lot for a church that big?

They have to have a huge parking garage next to the church

[Hoof Hearted]

24. I found it on Google Earth. No parking garage just a MASSIVE parking lot all the way

around the compound. Three separate 4 lane entrance/exits. There's a community college right next to it and the church just dwarfs the college.

Insane, just insane.

I think I'll stick to my little church with NO GUNS.

[progressivebydesign]

23. Hmm.. glad he stopped the killing, but an armed guard in a church?

that's just fucking scary!

[benEzra]

28. Synagogues have been doing this for a long time, with reason. (n/t)

[LeftyMom]

34. All the Synagogues and most of the Mosques/and Islamic Centers and associated schools here

have wrought iron fencing and armed guards at the entry.

There are a few churches in dodgy neighborhoods with fences, but I've never seen one with security guards, armed or otherwise, here.

[rockymountaindem]

40. There's always one or two at my synagogue on the High Holidays

or any other time you could expect the shul to be packed. I don't feel one bit bad about it.

[paulk]

26. I don't know if they normally have armed guards there

but the local news did mention that they had extra security because they'd been warned about the shooting in Arvada earlier in the day.

[CT_Progressive]

31. Its pretty sad...

... that he only killed one of them

[pipoman]

32. At the news conference

the pastor said that the security are volunteers who are also parishioners. The one who shot and killed the gunman is a female with a permit to carry concealed using her own gun. He stated that the gunman had much more ammunition and was headed for the church which had thousands of people present. It seems we may have a frame of reference for the effect of a mass shooter trying to attack innocent people in an area among those who are legally permitted to carry (as opposed to a "gun free zone").

Edit spelling

[Tejas]

42. speaking of "nail-on-the-head"

"It seems we may have a frame of reference for the effect of a mass shooter trying to attack innocent people in an area among those who are legally permitted to carry (as opposed to a "gun free zone")."

Very well put.

[catmandu57]

33. Sad. Jesus would have a field day

driving the money changers from these churches, until one of the armed guards dropped him that is.

[Beerboy]

35. Armed Security is the real high priest,

and killing is the highest sacrament.
I wonder if they anoint the Holy Gun before services?

[DS1]

43. In other news, the Phelps clan has landed

[RamboLiberal]

44. The pastor has used her as a personal bodyguard

The pastor went on to say that because of the actions of the armed security guard "hundreds of lives were saved" and he acknowledged that it could have been much worse.

Boyd says his head of security came to him Sunday morning after the news of the shooting at Youth With a Mission in which two people were killed and two were injured and the gunman fled the scene. The head of security suggested ramping up security for the day, according to Boyd.

He says the armed guard, who has a law enforcement background and was dressed in plain clothes, is a regular worshipper at New Life Church and generally attends one service to worship and then provides security at the second service. He says she is normally assigned to defend him as his personal bodyguard during the service.

http://www.9news.com/news/top-article.aspx?storyid=82503

With 7,000 people on the grounds and probably a lot of money from collections, etc. I have no problem with them having armed security.

[benEzra]

45. That "security guard" was apparently an ordinary parishioner with a carry license...

and her personally owned handgun. She was not professional security, just a volunteer with a CHL and the relevant skills, from the latest reports. She is said to have had a law enforcement background, but was not a police officer.

[Fierce]

54. She was a police officer in Minneapolis, but had been fired.

From the Star Tribune:

Lt. Robert Kroll, vice president of the Minneapolis Police Union, said Assam was fired in the late 1990s over "truthfulness issues." In an internal investigation, Assam had denied she used derogatory language in an encounter with a citizen in the late 1990s, but a videotape proved differently, Kroll said.

[piedmont]

50. Pro 2nd amendment folks don't want every person to have a gun. Just enough people.

This church had enough (barely).

[applegrove]

51. Tragic news. And what does it say about a country that needs security guards? I mean

unless this is a huge church...

[jody]

52. The guard should not have been armed. She should have called 911 instead of killing a poor criminal

forced to commit a despicable act by society. :sarcasm:

[michreject]

53. Love the sign................nt

[jmg257]

56. Glad to see someone is taking the security of the parishineers seriously;

and that people are taking their own defense seriously.

Brilliant!