From the HUH? files: My church needs an active shooter plan....

[Low Drag]

Wow that is really interesting.

My plan would be to have several people armed in the church.



C4

Ditto!

Also inform the insurance company that all church picnics take place at the local gun club and pastor evaluates the speed/accuracy of all those attending the church.

[Alpha Sierra]

Isn't it likely that your insurance company (or almost any other) specifically doesn't want people mounting any kind of armed resistance? They seem to be concerned solely with minimizing their liability across the board (which maximizes profits, of course), and not at all with anyone's genuine safety.

It isn't likely, it is certain.

Insurance companies care not one bit about the safety of their policy holders. All they care about is cutting their losses.

[Alpha Sierra]

Dad seemed to think judging by the way the letter sounded that maybe the organization was more concerned with a terrorist attack rather than AS which really makes sense to me, although both can happen.

The end result of both would be about the same, I think. So it makes sense that the plan for both be the same or at least very similar.

[Alpha Sierra]

That's exactly the sort of incident that the insurance company is worried about...but there's nothing in an active shooter plan I can come up with that will make much difference, save for the "shoot the bastard" route.

So maybe the answer is to draft a plan that meets the insurer's approval to file with them and draft the real plan that will actually neutralize the AS while minimizing losses to your side to file with your pastor.

[rhino]

Sure, I think I can do that. I may have the name of the organization wrong because my dad was telling me about it. He saw the letter I didn't see it first hand.

Excellent! Keep us posted!

[jackinfl]

John Wayne,
I would contact your local PD and ask them if they could do a presentation for the CHurch elders/deacons as to what their response to an active shooter would be in your facility. Then i would present them witht he oppurtunity to train an active shooter scenario in your Church with members of the congregation as role players. Once to this point you will know the Leader or thinker in the agency and then be able to put a plan together in cooperation with the PD.

Of course they, LE, need to know the potential of encountering armed civilians in the mix and chaos of the actual call.

I know we do it for the school board here and it is amazing how many principals volunteer their school for training. It makes sense, if you run the entire agency through the facility for training with a tour of the facility it leads me to believe that an actual response will be smoother.

Another idea is to ask for a security survey by your agncies Crime Prevention officer.

Best of luck

[Chickenlittle]

Let me begin by saying that I pastor a church in Philadelphia PA and have had 3 murders in the last 4 weeks within blocks of our church. I also serve as a LE Chaplain with local and federal LEA's, with cumulative experience over 33 years.
I am very surprised by such a letter from an insurance company. There are far more risks of liability from shooting - even defensively- than giving thieves what they want and putting in a claim for the loss. Furthermore, the idea of teaching our people to duck for cover or pull out their handguns in such a situation would have a very negative impact on church attendance in general. The fear of violence even outside the church has already put a crimp in evening service attendance in many places.
That said, I have carried a 40 cal. in church for last 11 years. It's just that nobody has ever seen it and 98% of the people don't know it's there. I also have at least three other members in regular attendance who carry to church as well. Their being armed is likewise unknown to the people, except to me and to each other.
Our best plan is to do nothing, unless someone is hurt by the intruders. In that scenario it falls to me to instruct the people to hit the floor and stay down while we make the best of an ugly situation and cell phones call 911. My apologies for the lengthy response.

[jackinfl]

Pastor,
With all due respect and appreciation for your service to LE and to God. You need to understand that an Active shooter is not there to get money and leave. He or they are there to kill as many people as possible and to be the next biggest thing to grab headlines. Please do not forget the amish girls in the school right down the road from you, or the guy in Bailey Colorado with those girls. These threats are not robbers or petty thieves they are there with a plan to get the media attention their confused lives could not give them.
If you can, please try to attend a one day seminar by the author of Terror at Beslan, John Giduck. It is extremely eye opening!
Sir, again I am not trying to be disrespectful.
Stay safe.
Jack

[Colt6920]

I can neither confirm nor deny that a particular individual when consulted about the plan for an active shooter suggested the following bulleted list: "Step 1: Kill the bastard. Step 2: Call the police. Step 3: Have carpets cleaned."

You mean nobody suggested the old standby: Kill 'em all let God sort it out"

[HolyRoller]

My nondenominational megachurch is in the Fayetteville NC area, a ten-minute drive from Fort Bragg ("Click On Warrior To Enter"), home of the XVIII Airborne Corps, 82d Airborne Division, US Army Special Operations Command, 3rd and 7th Special Forces Groups (Airborne), all kinds of aviation and artillery and intel and psyops troops, and maybe even a certain Unit that nobody is supposed to talk about. Our church probably has more SF personnel, Q Course candidates and Team guys and Group Support, than any other church in the world. One of my good friends is going through SF medic training and passing everything the first time, after having been a Force Recon Marine for ten years and Scout/Sniper School graduate and running a hundred or so direct action ops in Iraqistan--guess all that was not exciting enough for him.

Such men do not suffer fools gladly, and maybe aspiring active shooters know this, so we do not have a lot of trouble. But we do not have a lot of law enforcement types that I know of. When the singles group goes out on the town, I kind of look around and think, I'm probably the only one here armed. I might or might not be the only one armed in regular services, where we have over a thousand people. I don't advertise the fact and am not part of any active response team--I just hide a 1911 or M9 and a Smith 637, plus cuffs and OC spray, and to my knowledge I've never been made. If I have been, it was by somebody who was sympathetic enough not to say anything. Of course, I would be more satisfied if somebody approached me about being part of a plan, and our leadership is not the shrinking-violet type, but who knows what kind of cockamamie letters they've gotten from the insurance company. So I figure forgiveness is easier to obtain than permission, and carry on a DADT basis.

We need to work on the mentality of the non-warriors. My girlfriend is a wonderful kind sweet lady, and cares deeply about the helpless. She said she has seen a few suspicious potential child molesters lurking around and is afraid one or more of them will try to hurt or kill the kids. "I'll die for them, take a bullet for them!" I said, my dear, we do not win wars by dying for our side, we win by making THEM die for THEIR side. She happened to go with me when I was on an emergency AK shopping mission before the LAV AK class, and I let her hold the Yugo underfolder I ended up buying to see if it was too heavy. She did figure out which part was the grip, and with a little prompting put her support hand under the handguard correctly--and then laid the stock struts on her shoulder like it was an RPG. "Is this good?" Well, it's close! We need people around to ask questions like this and keep us on our toes, but we also have to find a way to adjust their thinking. I haven't found it yet with her.