One can only imagine the nightmare of an errant round fired by a member of an organized church security team striking and perhaps even killing a church member, their child, or a visitor.
Some churches have teams that include or are entirely made up of off-duty law enforcement officers. I have met with and worked with some of those officers, and some of them are outstanding. However, some are not. I have seen different reports that suggest that in law enforcement shooting officers on average completely miss their targets perhaps 60% to 70% of the time.
In other words, for every 100 shots fired, perhaps as many as 60 to 70 bullets hit something else. Every miss is still an unintended hit on something else. Sometimes the “else” are innocent bystanders. And these are officers that have completed somewhere between 700 and 840 hours of training in law enforcement academies.
I write this not to disparage law enforcement officers (I was a reserve deputy for 18 years) but to point out that the firearms training these officers received in their academies is typically far more than that of the average church security team member. I have been teaching church security team member development classes for 15 years, and I have found that for most of the students who are already on teams, this is the first formal firearms class that they have ever taken.
The challenge for those teams that train (and I applaud them for doing that) is to make certain all training is realistic, relevant, and recent. That training should include the topics that are set out below.
THREAT MANAGEMENT
Team members should understand that the only difference between an active shooter, domestic violence, personal conflict, and even a robbery in the parking lot that results in serious bodily injury or death is the motivation of the attacker and the body count. This means having a plan in advance, knowing that it might require split-second revision based upon new information, and knowledge of how to interact with a person who may or may not intend to commit violence. Team members should be taught that threatening another person with a gun without good cause can result in their being charged with brandishing or aggravated assault in conjunction with being named in a civil lawsuit.
USE OF FORCE
The use or threat of deadly force is not warranted unless the other person (or persons) has the intent, opportunity, and ability to seriously injure or kill another person or commit certain forcible felonies like robbery, kidnapping, or sexual assault. The challenge with intent is that it may be difficult to ascertain. Team members should be taught how to interact with and interview suspicious persons in order to “disambiguate” the situation if possible. The majority of such contacts do not represent actual threats, and most of the time the reasons for unusual behavior or appearance are benign. A team member may be the first person in emotional distress, struggling with a loss, or even coming into a house of worship for the first time in which they make contact, and should be met with grace and courtesy.
SAFETY
There are four cardinal rules of firearms safety that team members must learn by heart and follow assiduously. This is never so true than when in a church and in close proximity to anywhere from dozens to thousands of attendees within range of a handgun bullet.
GUNHANDLING
In my experience, the gunhandling skills possessed by many members of church security teams need improvement. I have also seen teams where the gunhandling of nearly every member of the team is what is often referred to as “unconsciously competent.” In other words, there was no longer any need on their part to think about drawing their handgun and getting the muzzle between them and a deadly threat as quickly as possible and keeping the handgun up and running.
An example of unconscious competence is when driving on a busy street where vehicles are parked next to curbs is the reaction of an experienced driver seeing a soccer ball bouncing into the street only a short distance in front of his moving car. He hits the brakes instantly without giving even a brief thought to first removing his foot from the accelerator and bringing it up, left, and down hard on the brake pedal.
I believe that team members should achieve that same level of competence with their firearm if they need it in a situation in which split-seconds matter. The aforementioned driver’s problem was reasonably straight forward: a child may dart out after the ball and they don’t want to hit him or her. The team member’s problem may be far more complex, and what may take place in the next few seconds may cost people their lives. That is not a good time to have to also think about getting a good grip on the handgun, draw it from concealment, and think about what needs to be done to shooting it accurately.
PRESENTATION FROM THE HOLSTER
Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice may not result in perfect either, but striving for it can develop a robust, repeatable draw that incorporates both economy of motion and efficiency that not only allows the team member to get the sights on target quicker but do so safely. A skill that is often taken for granted is holstering the handgun. A large percentage of self-inflicted gunshot wounds take place when the user holsters the handgun improperly. We may spend as much as 30 minutes in every church security team member pistol skills class we teach just working on drawing and holstering.
PLACEMENT AND ACCURACY
The more time that active killers have to injure or kill their intended victims the greater the chances are that they will succeed. Team members should have a basic understanding of tactical anatomy and learn how to stop those killers in the shortest possible time using competent short-range precision marksmanship. There is an enormous difference between stopping a motivated criminal attacker who will not stop attacking us until such time he or she is physically unable to do so and being able to shoot small groups on a static, two-dimensional paper target or steel target under more or less stress-free conditions. A strong emphasis on accuracy also lessens the chances that an errant round fired by a team member strikes and injures or kills an attendee.
SPEED
This means having a quick presentation from the holster, minimal reactionary lag upon seeing or hearing a threat, a quick measured response based upon training, and ability to rapidly adapt to further developments or a sudden change of circumstances.
GUNFIGHTING IN CROWDS
One of the reasons that active killers come to houses of worship is that the quickest way to accumulate a sizeable body count is to find crowds of people in confined spaces with limited exits. This may be a nightmare for team members for the same reason, and the odds of inadvertently shooting an attendee (or attendees) can be high. Team members need to be taught how to change angles and use elevation in order to mitigate to the extent possible that a miss or peripheral hit that over-penetrates strikes another person. This may mean that the team member may have to approach to an uncomfortably close distances in order to accomplish this. An additional benefit of requiring team members to wear soft body armor is that it can also serve as a much-needed morale booster.
TESTING
Team members should shoot and pass a challenging qualification course of fire. This is one of the best ways to aid in team member selection and remove team members if at some point they are no longer able to qualify. At the risk of sounding callous, I would rather remove a member from my team than risk an attendee getting accidentally shot in what may be an absolute melee in a crowded area.
Much of our 10-round qualification course of fire requires initial movement like what might be required in order to rapidly get into a position in which a team member could effectively respond to an active shooter. Requiring team members to shoot short tests like this one twice in order to qualify will likely eliminate any factor that luck might play. Shooting qualification courses quarterly, or at least bi-annually, is a good way to not only keep the shooting skills of the team members sharp but encourage them to practice on their own between them.
ACTIVE SHOOTER RESPONSE
“The body cannot go where the mind has not been.” Mandatory reading for team members should be the book The First 30 Seconds by author Ed Monk. It is not just the fact that the longer an active shooter is allowed to shoot attendees the greater the body count, it is also the high likelihood that more people will be shot early into the killing spree before they can run away.
To my way of thinking, a good class will incorporate at least a short block on introducing the student to the basic principles of active shooter response, preparing themselves mentally to deal with carnage, confusion, blaring fire alarms, etc., making the decision in advance that they are voluntarily putting themselves in danger of being killed, and when the time comes to actually shoot another person do so to stop them as quickly as possible without shooting an innocent third party. Team members who take this responsibility seriously should then take a dedicated active shooter response course from Ed Monk (or at least from one of his certified students).
SHOOTING AFTERMATH
On numerous occasions, off-duty police officers and concealed carriers who have successfully neutralized an active shooter or an armed robber have been mistaken for armed criminals and shot and killed by other officers and concealed carriers. There is no way of knowing how many armed attendees may be in a house of worship at a given service, and responding law enforcement officers may be unaware that there is security team in place when responding to a “shots fired” call. The team should learn a protocol in place to deal with not only responding officers but well-intentioned concealed carriers.
One of the best ways to mitigate these risks is for team members to be trained to either holster their handguns (while retaining a firing grip if necessary) or maintain a two-handed grip with the muzzle of the handgun pointing at the floor directly in front of them (low ready, compressed low ready, or position Sul), and moving into a position in which they can see the downed shooter as well as the entrance into the room or area at the same time. In the words of legendary trainer Paul Howe, “Be visibly neutral.”
IMMEDIATE-ACTION GUNSHOT WOUND TREATMENT
Team members should have on their persons at least a tourniquet, and ideally a pressure dressing and two chest seals, at all times during training. Teams whose emergency medicine blow-out kit is in the camera room that requires several minutes (at best) to get to a team member and then apply will likely be horrified to find out that the injured team member who had his or her femoral or radial artery severed bled out in less than a minute. A good class will spend at least some time on self-application of tourniquets. If the student can secure a tourniquet on him or herself, they can easily apply one on another team member or attendee.
Each member of the team should also take several additional training classes (on their own if need be) each year. Every time we drive up to our house of worship, we should ask ourselves the following question: Is this going to be the day that I am called upon by God to step in between one of His worshippers and evil, and did I take this responsibility too lightly?
Continued training should be a priority because defensive shooting skills are quite perishable. Team members sometimes forget the word “recent” when we say that all training should be relevant, realistic, and recent.
Steve Moses is the director of training for Palisade Training Group, which offers classes on Church Security Team Development, Church Security Team Member Essential Pistol Skills, and an inexpensive Church Security Team Enhancement Video suitable for view by team members, ministers, house of worship leaders, ushers, greeters, and parking lot attendants, www.ptgtrainingllc.com.
