Reply #221: She was not official security; had she been, her Beretta would have been ILLEGAL in that setting [View All]

[benEzra]

She was not official security; had she been, her Beretta would have been illegal in that setting under city ordinance and possibly Colorado law, since she used a Beretta 9mm semiautomatic (her personally owned defensive pistol), whereas actual security guards were limited by law to .38 caliber revolvers. But the church considered hired security to be "mercenaries," and instead allowed church members with CHLs and personally owned guns to carry in church, with permission of the pastor, to provide informal security (and hence she was legal to carry a Beretta instead of a revolver). In retrospect, that was a good thing, as the hired security at the no-CHL-allowed Westboro mall froze up when a gunman appeared, but Ms. Assam (parishioner with a CHL and the pastor's permission to carry) did not--and had she been a formal security guard, she would have run out of ammunition before the gunman went down, since she fired ten shots and security-guard-mandated revolvers generally hold six.

She was a church member with a gun and CHL who volunteered to provide informal security. She already owned the gun, and had the CHL, well before the incident that prompted her suggestion of increased armed presence at the church.

CHL holders do that a lot for their churches/workplaces in states where they are allowed to do so, and had she not had a personal CHL and a personally owned gun, she would have been unarmed. A lot of states prohibit anyone but hired security from carrying in church, even those with CHL's, but fortunately Colorado was not one of them.