Responding To A Massacre
The Virginia Tech massacre a few days ago has brought security to the front of many people’s minds. There are occasional events that make a critical mass of people concerned enough that everybody tries to mentally prepare themselves for a similar situation.
After 9/11, a stewardess on one of the first flights to go back into the air gave instructions to the passengers on how to fend off an attacker. When you are in the air there is nobody to help except you. This was brought to mind a few weeks ago when David Beamer, father of Todd Beamer, visited with us and spoke at our services during our Heroes series. THe message title was “A Hero is Willing to Take Action When Necessary.”
Security consultant Allen Hill spoke on this topic recently on The Today Show; Schools need to teach students to be aggressive.
The basic idea is that nutcasses with guns are not going to be negotiated out of anything. A shooter in the middle of a worship service is only going down by the people around him taking him down.
I’m not sure what I would do in the situation. Not to sound like a wuss, but it would depend on the threat posed to my family. I would be a complete idiot for the sake of my daughter, but I’m not sure about any other reasons. There are a lot of costs to count in a short period of time.
April 21st, 2007 at 8:19 am
You know my feelings on this: If legal to carry in church in your state, have a gun with you. Also a good argument for armed and trained Church Security.
We discussed this very issue during our Deacon/Pastor meeting this week.