Standards for Church Security Teams
It is imperative that armed church security teams enforce training and performance standards for members relative to their firearm skills. In the words of Tom Givens, Rangemaster Firearms Training Services, LLC, “There are no misses in gunfights, only unintended hits.” With the physical confines of a church building, and the likelihood that many people will be occupying a relatively small space, it becomes even more critical for church team members to have highly developed firearms skills. To ensure this level of skill team leaders should expect the armed members of their teams meet a minimum standard of performance.
Most nationally recognized instructors recommend a church require team members to qualify on the course of fire (COF) used by their local law enforcement agencies. In court, this would be easy to explain to a jury that, “I qualified to same standard of marksmanship as law enforcement officers (LEOs) in my state.”
In Mississippi there are two COFs: one approved for active-duty officers, and one approved for off-duty carry. The active-duty officer COF involves shots from 3-25 yards including strong-hand only and support-hand only strings of fire and is designed for a full-size duty-size handgun. The off-duty COF is designed for a much smaller, concealable handgun like most of the defensive handguns carried by citizens for self-defense.
From my experience working with many church security teams, few members of the team can pass the off-duty COF, even fewer are able to pass the active-duty COF under the prescribed time constraints. For newer teams and or team members, it may be best to start with a variation of your state’s off-duty or active-duty COF. For example, use the strings of fire, but start from the low-ready. Additionally, consider eliminating the one-handed requirements and allow the shooters to shoot those strings with both hands from the low ready. As skills improve, work towards meeting the official COF requirements. In addition to holding qualification sessions, consider running skill building sessions where you challenge your team members to improve skill by practicing proper techniques on progressively difficult drills. My church offers qualification sessions every other month using the MS active-duty COF; then, on the off-months, we gather to run skill-building drills. We even ask members to propose drills that they have seen or used that interest them.
A LEO COF passing grade should be the bare minimum level of skill. Most LEO targets are too generous. For example, if you are using a B27 silhouette target or a Milk Bottle shaped targets hits in the lower abdomen or hits that graze an “arm” count the same or almost as much as hits to high center chest. In real life, we know this isn’t accurate or acceptable. We suggest training to much higher standards. Ed Monk of Last Resort Firearms Training teaches an active shooter response class where he requires hits to an 8-inch chest circle, and misses are not allowed. The basic Rangemaster Instructor certification scores hits to the same 8-inch circle all the way out to 25 yards. With a required 90% score for passing, students can’t drop too many hits from the 8-inch circle and pass. These standards are a good place to begin demanding higher levels of proficiency from your church security team members.
