Now, that’s a gal!
Posted December 10th, 2007 at 9:37 PM by Jon HamTwo male security guards froze up and refused to fire on the church-shooting scum in Colorado Springs, but Jeanne Assam had no qualms:
“I saw him coming through the doors” and took cover, Assam said. “I came out of cover and identified myself and engaged him and took him down.”
“God was with me,” Assam said. “I didn’t think for a minute to run away.”
Well, that was her job, right? Security guard? Give her a raise.
UPDATE: She’s becoming a worldwide sensation. Scroll down for the Australian front page and headline.
UPDATE: James Lileks points to some really incredible anti-Christian reaction from the Fark site (scroll down). Amazing that there are people like this.
December 11th, 2007 at 8:21 am
This guard was a church member, and an unpaid security volunteer, who had been a Minneapolis cop some time in the past. See this other article for some more detail.
As to the other guards, all I can say is that some people just freeze up at the moment of truth. When I has my shooting in Durham back in 2005, I shot a bad guy who had two revolvers – one in each hand. I had two other officers with me. One was on his third day at work, and was too stunned to even draw his gun. The other one said that there was a car that prevented him from taking a shot. (Maybe there was. Who knows. I never saw it.) I was the only one of the three that took care of business. Why? I dunno. But it happens.
But I do know that, as a Christian, and being secure in my beliefs as to where I am going once I die, I was not worried about getting killed. Not that I wanted to get killed, obviously, but my faith put that possibility in the proper perspective that it deserves, and allowed me to do what I needed to do without undue fear of what might happen. I think that worked with this girl, too. God put her where she needed to be, when she needed to be there, and she mustered up the courage that saved the day. Note that the bad guy had over 1,000 rounds with him, so it is not exaggerating to say that she could have saved a hundred lives.
And this brings up another point – does your church have a plan for something like this? If not, get to work. There is likely to be a policeman or former policeman or military man (or woman) who could set something up. It does not necessarily need to be elaborate. In fact, simple is better. Believing that it “won’t happen here” would not be much comfort if it actually does. And, yes, my church does have a plan. Without a plan, things descend into chaos when the unexpected happens.
December 11th, 2007 at 8:28 am
Eric, I just read that Assam urged the church to increase security after the other incident near Denver, and that’s why there were three people there that day. I’d say she called it right. Yes, she was a church member but she was volunteering as a security guard, which explains the confusion in the media on that point.
December 11th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Here are several points that I would like to make:
1. There is not enough money to keep a bunch of security guards or off duty police to guard everything all the time.
2. There are not enough police to be everywhere you would want them to be. Despite their best efforts, they are therefore more likely to be reactive to an event than to be in the right place at the right time to keep an event from happening in the first place. Sometimes this does happen, but you sure can’t count on it!
3. The police will do a (mostly) fine job of responding to take a report of an incident that is happening or that has already happened. The bad guy will likely get killed or captured at some point, but you will not necessarily be around for this to occur. The 8×10 color glossy photos with circles and arrows that they will take are interesting, but it is not good to be a subject of one of them. Trust me.
4. We know that criminal and terrorist violence sometimes occurs in this world of ours. Since the police are unlikely to be available at any given time to protect you (or your group,) a smart person (or group leader) will make some other provisions to protect himself (or his group.)
5. Having a firearm for self-defense is a very good way to protect yourself or your family or your group. Thank God that this lady did. Getting the training to wield it with a decent amount of accuracy is relatively easy. This can be taught in a few days, with about 500 rounds of ammo expended.
6. Training your mind, soul and heart to use deadly force to protect yourself or someone else is not as easy as learning marksmanship. Some people just cannot do it. A wise man makes this decision before he decides whether or not to carry a gun. If he cannot bring himself to use it when threatened with deadly force, then he will likely get it taken away and used against him, or will otherwise get himself killed, should there be a confrontation with an aggressor. In this case, he should not buy or carry a gun, and he should be content with whatever destiny the fates have in store for him. What he should not do is try to take away the rights of others to protect themselves, just because he is content to not protect himself.
We can keep talking about this, but this is the Cliffs Notes version…
Eric “Lifetime NRA Member” Weaver