Last Friday evening, a large institutional SDA church sent out the following email:
We want to make the church aware of an incident this evening during the youth vespers. One of our young people and an adult church member were observed showing a weapon in the church's parking lot. The person that observed them called the police with a concern that the church had an active shooter incident about to occur.
The . . . Police and . . . County Sheriff's Department responded and cleared the area. After the situation and location were clear, the individuals involved made statements to the authorities, and there was no report filed. No arrests were made, and the evening program was able to resume.
All threats or perceived incidents are taken seriously and investigated thoroughly by the authorities. The safety of all members, visitors, and our community is essential to the . . . Church leadership.
Considering this event, our church board will be evaluating our current policies on the possession of firearms on the premises.
This sounds like a law-abiding gun owner was showing a firearm to a friend (in a parking lot, not inside the church) and someone called the police. The police made no arrests, because the conduct was legal and harmless.
Gun owners show their guns to others all the time, both in the privacy of their own homes, and in public settings like gun shows. Gun owners like to talk about and describe their firearms, and their listeners often say things like, “wow, I’d like to see that piece sometime.” The gun owner might respond with, “I have it my trunk right now, we can go out to the parking lot and look at it.” Those unfamiliar with gun culture will not understand this phenomenon, but it is harmless, in good fellowship, and the farthest thing from an “active shooter” situation.
It will be interesting to see how the church board reacts to this so-called “incident,” and here is where some research and careful thinking is in order.
Clearly, pastors and church boards must know that an attack by a deranged mass murdered is something to be seriously considered and planned for—even though it is a low-probability event. They must also be cognizant that Christians are increasingly targeted for acts of violence. The transgender killer who killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, targeted the school in part because it was a conservative Christian school that embraced biblical principles of sexuality.
But the last thing pastors and church boards should do is adopt a “gun-free zone” policy. That does not help at all; it merely signals that those who control the church have the politically correct (Leftist) attitude toward guns. No deranged killer would abide by a “gun free zone” sign. Such a notice would only encourage the killer to attack that very place, because the potential victims are much less likely to be armed and return fire.
The better policy is to have armed and trained congregants. Compare the 2017 church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in which 26 people were killed, with the 2019 church shooting in White Settlement, Texas, in which only 2 victims were killed. For about 10 years, the White Settlement congregation had been developing a security team of licensed gun owners who practiced shooting regularly; one of those men dropped the would-be mass murderer just six seconds after the first shot.
Police are not the answer; regardless how vigilant the local police are, it will take them at least a minute or two to arrive, and lives are likely to be lost during those precious seconds. Sadly, police sometimes fail to act with the expected courage and promptness even after arriving at the scene. The local police who responded to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last year dithered around in the hallway for over an hour while children were being murdered in a classroom, and never actually did anything. A U.S. Border Patrol tactical team, which was a half-hour drive away when the incident began, also stood around for about half an hour after they arrived at the scene, but they eventually decided to ignore the local police, enter the building, and kill the murderer.
We live in a fallen world of sin; we must recognize that monstrous crimes are always a possibility and plan accordingly. It is unlikely that our church building will be destroyed in a fire, flood, tornado, or earthquake, but we nevertheless buy insurance to ensure against these low-probability events. Likewise, we should plan for the very remote possibility that an armed murderer will attack our church. In such planning we will conclude that armed congregants are the best first line of defense.