Churches mixed over armed guards

Public reluctance, liability issues work against it, experts say

By David Montero, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Darin McGregor / The Rocky

Police search for evidence in the parking lot of New Life Church in Colorado Springs on Monday. While the church has had armed security guards for a few years, that strategy - a response to an uptick in violence against churches - has been slow to catch on at other places of worship, experts say.

Darin McGregor / The Rocky

The first rays of the morning sun illuminate the steeple of New Life Church a day after the shootings.

Jeanne Assam was armed when services started at New Life Church - a policy that had been in place for a few years.

It turned out, according to Senior Pastor Brady Boyd, to be a fortuitous choice because Assam likely saved many lives when she shot a heavily armed gunman entering the church.

But having an armed presence inside a place of worship isn't necessarily a common practice, both because of feelings about weapons in a church and insurance liabilities.

Dale Annis, chief executive officer for Church Security Services, said he has consulted with churches across the country and found that few want to have guns on site during services. Annis said that the expense of training and keeping permits current along with the insurance make it cost-prohibitive for some smaller churches.

Annis, a retired police officer, started his Bakersfield, Calif.-based business about four years ago when he noticed an uptick in violence against churches.

His company helps churches adapt security plans for violent events such as the one in Colorado Springs, and he said he believes that any church the size of the 10,000-member New Life needs to have armed security on site.

"If you're over 2,000 in membership, you're crazy not to have armed security," he said. "When you get to that size, you really have no idea who is walking through your doors."

That's part of what prompted The Potter's House not only to have an armed guards on its campus, but also to hire a security director.

Dallas-based Potter's House has nearly 20,000 members. Its security director, Sean Smith, said it began arming guards about eight years ago when Bishop T.D. Jakes started receiving death threats.

Smith said that high-profile pastors such as Jakes are significant targets and not having a well-trained armed force on site would put lives at risk.

But drawing weapons is a last resort, Smith said.

"We are not preaching the Rambo techniques," he said. "We're preaching smart techniques that you could even use in your own home."

Still, there isn't across-the-board support for guns in churches.

Saddleback Valley Community Church, the home base for Rick Warren, has about 20,000 people who attend the Lake Forest, Calif., megachurch, and security there isn't armed.

Warren's chief of staff, David Chrzan, said that putting guns in the hands of an on-site security staff would seem to be a last resort in trying to protect the congregation.

"Where do you go from there - two armed guards, three armed guards?" he said. "At that point, you're just adding artillery."

It reminded Pastor Brad Strait of South Fellowship Church in Littleton of the role that monasteries played in Europe during the Middle Ages, when travelers relied on the walled sanctuaries to protect them at night because the roads were unsafe.

Strait doesn't have armed guards at his church, but he said he understands why some may decide to go that route.

"We live in an era where we're more afraid," Strait said. "There are people who come in to the mall or a school or a church with the sole purpose of hurting other people, and that's happening at a much more frequent rate than before. That makes us nervous."

Church shootings - in fact church violence - isn't a new phenomenon and dates back to the Civil Rights era when churches in the South were bombed.

More recently, at a church in Baton Rouge, La., a man shoot four people and killed his wife.

A year before in Milwaukee, a gunman fired nearly two dozen shots during a church meeting at a hotel where he killed seven.

• December 11, 2007

  1:41 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  hinz writes:

  When a church gets so big they are afraid of people coming in, it is too big. "You have no idea who is walking through your doors"? What is this, a club? "Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh," as a great man once wrote.

• December 11, 2007

  5:40 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  GeneralDissaray writes:

  if thy brother shoot thee in thy cheeck,then turn and offer him thine other cheeck.and if thy brother ask of the for thy coat or a place to stay the night,say unto him" Hell no cracker ass mo-fo,yo man dis is a mission,not no residential district,carry yo ass on down da street,dis here be mr. Gillmo's propaty".