“[H]is mother cried as he walked out, ‘don’t take your guns to town, son. Leave your guns at home. . . unless you’re going to that school church. In which case, you should lock and load.'”
Sen. Sandlin would add to the list of people authorized to have a firearm on school property. They have to be otherwise legally entitled to possess a firearm and possesses the firearm on school property in connection with “attending a worship service or religious ceremony conducted at a house of worship located on the school property.”
I know bad things can happen anywhere, but I don’t think going to church is so inherently dangerous that it justifies its own special exemption.
Excellent observation about churches and why they should be considered any more dangerous than any place else. Unless you want them to be in your mind, and then it’s Katie-bar-the-door. In my imagination the inside of a bank vault could be a dangerous place. Just because some deluded people choose a place to shoot up doesn’t make all of those places certain death traps. If we consider that statistical probabilities, my kitchen and bathroom should be avoided at all costs unless I come armed for that cup of coffee or to take a leak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25683IE5v9g Not sure it can get a bit rowdy in church.
Maybe he could have just told the minister that he didn’t like the sermon.
Somehow I got on an email list which attempts to sell stuff to pastors. Web services, PowerPoint templates, etc. And a lot of security related stuff. “Is your church secure?” “How would your congregation deal with a live shooter?” Never clicked through, but I guess there’s a cottage industry for everything these days.
Truly. Part of the problem with churches is that people are really bad at assessing risk. A shooting in a church is likely to be more high profile than your regular shooting — and shootings in general are likely to be more high profile than all the other stuff that can go wrong in your life. So, I imagine perception of the risk in churches is way out of proportion than the actual risk. So, easy sales. Performance is almost guaranteed. “How many shootings have there been in your church since you bought our Secur-a-Church ™ system? None. I rest my case!”
I wonder if the bill was written to help churches that rent schools to host their Sunday services … so that those churches could have non-police act as their security guards and let them carry their weapon.
Otherwise, it’s one of those bills that I’m stumped as to the problem it’s trying to solve.
There are plenty of people that carry a gun everywhere, except places like schools where it is clear that you’re not permitted to take a gun inside.
Churches with attached schools seem ambiguous as far as the law is concerned. On Sunday morning, with no school classes in session, is that building a school or a church as far as the law prohibiting firearms is concerned?
I personally know people that declare that it is just a church outside of school hours, but depending on the prosecutor and judge, there is a fair amount of gray area out there.
Regardless of your views on if people should be carrying a gun to church or not, in most churches in Indiana, it is clearly legal to do so. This just confirms that that law is consistent.
I guess I’d ask the question the other way around: If there is no school activities going on, why should the law prohibit firearms?