November 6, 2017 Show with Tim Fancher and Larry Pratt on “Biblically Ordained Measures to Protect Your Church From Assassins, Terrorists, Violent Criminals & Madmen”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this sixth day of November 2017.

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Some of you were expecting Nate Pickowitz to be on the program today to discuss

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Why We're Protestant, a new book that he has written. He was also going to give some personal reflections as a pastor on the horrific massacre that took place just yesterday at a

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Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. But providentially,

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Pastor Nate Pickowitz had an unforeseen conflict with his schedule, so he had to postpone his interview.

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Today we are going to be spending the full two hours addressing a very important and timely theme in the aftermath of that massacre.

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We're going to be discussing biblically ordained measures to protect your church from assassins, terrorists, violent criminals, and madmen.

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For the first hour, our guest to discuss this topic will be Tim Fancher, founder of Psalm 144

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Church Protection Seminars and American Street Edge Self -Defense Systems.

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He's a fourth -degree black belt in American Kenpo karate with over 30 years of martial arts experience.

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He's a former police officer and a recognized expert in church security, personal protection, and children's abduction prevention.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Tim Fancher. Hi Chris, I very much appreciate you having us on, and just God bless you for having the heart to work to try to help others be safe while getting these critical messages out.

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Well, first of all, tell our listeners something about Psalm 144

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Church Protection Seminars and American Street Edge Self -Defense Systems, and then we'll go into how the

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Lord providentially used circumstances in your own life and your own experiences to lead you to found these very organizations.

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Well, I've been a professional street self -defense instructor really since about 1999, and I've run everything from full -time schools in two different states, both

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Missouri and Oklahoma, to various seminars, and I specialized in women's self -defense for all through the 2000s as I was living in Columbia, Missouri, and there's several colleges to college town.

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But I kind of came to God later in life than some people, and while I was, and I'll tell the full story later, but while I was attending seminary at Oral Roberts University here in Tulsa working my

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Master's of Practical Theology, I became involved in a situation in which a number of threats had come in against a small church, and I set out to protect that family, and that's when

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I discovered there was a real issue with church security. And when I began to investigate it, it seemed that either churches either just wanted to say, you know,

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I didn't want to talk about it, and they wouldn't even acknowledge it, or they went overboard, and they had these just almost paramilitary -looking people going around, and they were basically scaring the parishioners, and I was seeing that some security companies were calling it church security, and all they were doing was taking standard security measures, slapping some scripture in there, and calling it church security.

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And there's nothing out there like church security. With my background, my undergraduate degrees are sociology and criminal justice.

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I mean, I've just lived and breathed keeping people safe my whole life, and there's nothing quite like church security, and I'll be talking about that, but I really set out to balance the tension that exists between standard security practices, social psychology, and theology in order to help the small to medium -sized churches learn how to implement and create and maintain a volunteer church security team.

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And that started back in 2012, and I've just been working at it ever since. And as far as Street Edge, I just teach a very practical, very no -nonsense street self -defense system, which is also, of course, based on American Kenpo karate, and they all just go hand -in -hand, because I'm able to teach what we call pain compliance techniques to help the security teams, or as I call them, the church protection team, to be able to stand someone up and get them out of the sanctuary, if need be, amongst many other things.

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Could you repeat that phrase you used, pain restraint, or something like that, if you could?

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And also, not only repeat it, but explain it, define it. What was that again?

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I apologize. You said that you use pain restraint techniques, I think is what you said, perhaps.

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Pain compliance techniques, and what that means is, you know, because we'll be talking about, and I'm so grateful to people that have the time to fully explain this, but we'll be talking about the different measures of security, including one that I think will surprise some people, of what can be such an issue.

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But pain compliance, when I teach people that, say you have someone who is acting up, and they're becoming emotional, and you're not sure if they're about to become violent, but they're causing a disruption in the sanctuary.

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And what I tell people, especially some of the places that had untrained people, they just kind of slapped together a security team, you can't just go up and punch that guy in the face, not only because it's a church, but you know, he might be sitting beside grandma.

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So there has to be a way to get them up and out of the sanctuary, and get them into an isolated area to find out what's going on, short of just punching them or tackling them.

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So pain compliance techniques means that you are strategically using different techniques, including pressure points and things of that nature, to be able to stand someone up and remove them with hopefully minimal church flow disruption.

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In other words, if I've actually had a couple times where my team, they stood someone up against their will, and got them out of the area, and people, even one rollover, didn't know what had just happened.

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And those are the marks of the elite sort of team and training that churches need to have. So if it is that sort of situation, it doesn't cause fear and chaos, and then on top of that, it doesn't interfere with the message when the pastor's up there.

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And by the way, I'm going to give out our email address, so if anybody in the audience would like to join in on the conversation and ask questions of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen, at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N, at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the

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USA. And please only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter over which you are asking.

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That's chrisarnsen, at gmail .com, chrisarnsen, at gmail .com.

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Tell us about American Kenpo Karate. What's unique about that form of martial art?

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Well, it was originally created by Mr. Edmund K. Parker, and I've been training in that since September of 1989, actually.

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And it was designed as a street self -defense system, but as I was advancing through the ranks at a long time ago, when

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I was in, actually, the police academy, I saw that society was getting more violent. This was back in 2000.

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And I began to just envision a more streamlined system, where if someone, they didn't have months to years to learn what we just kind of call the good stuff, but they may only have a short period of time, how can

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I effectively help this person and not just fill their head full of Hollywood nonsense after, you know, one seminar is just going to get them hurt in the street.

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So I spent several hundred hours studying and creating what

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I call American Street Edge, which also teaches the physiological and the psychological effects of fear of the body.

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And so I'll teach that and teach the medical implications of the different strikes. And then I used an

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FBI report that showed statistically what the most common attacks were, what direction of the clock they come from off the clock principle, things of that nature.

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And then really taking into account what's going to happen to your body whenever your adrenaline starts to go up.

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So these are the things that I would teach my students. And whenever I do that, because as I was specializing in women's self -defense, sometimes

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I would have somebody come to me and they were in trouble. They needed help immediately. But the main thing was I learned very early on, if I can flip that switch and get someone to start to see things differently, where they have an enhanced level of environmental and situational awareness, but they're not just paranoid, but they know when to have that enhanced sense.

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Then they're going to start to put off a sense of quiet confidence that oftentimes will preclude them from being a victim of a violent crime.

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So the wonderful thing is that once I'm able to start doing that and I can help instill that sort of confidence, that awareness, then hopefully they won't have to get physical.

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But if someone does choose to attack one of my students, they're going to realize that they chose the wrong person very quickly because Street Edge is nothing to mess with.

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And what's amazing, and it makes me think of Romans and how things just come together, is all the time

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I was going through Street Edge and I was creating it, I was studying and training so hard, and everything from medical books to psychological journals,

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I didn't even realize that that was the Lord preparing me for Psalm 144 one day, because there's such a crossover between when

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I used to teach college students how to stay safe to now teaching pastors and congregations out in rural areas in Texas and Oklahoma and Missouri how to be safe.

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And it's truly remarkable the way it's all come together. So there is this crossover, but you know, it all comes down to really having that wherewithal, having that education, of having that awareness.

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And one of my favorite pieces of Scripture is Proverbs 28, the righteous are as bold as a lion. It is time for pastors and churches to understand that is a mentality you must have.

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You can no longer have excuses as to why you can't have security. There's a number of ways that you can do it that really pleasantly surprises a lot of churches when

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I teach them that. But you must have a boldness. So the same sort of boldness that I would instill in my students in Street Edge, going back so far, is the same sort of mentality that we want to have in our churches so that we're able to create what's called a hard target, where a bad guy, if he's scouting a church, will realize this is not the church to mess with, while still maintaining that balance of creating a welcoming atmosphere so that whenever someone comes in, they don't feel intimidated, rather they feel reassured.

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That's one of the key points of Psalm 144 church protection seminars. Darrell Bock In fact, if you could read

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Psalm 144 to us so our listeners all know why you used that name to identify your ministry or your organization.

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Yeah, I actually was, when I was working on church security and I didn't have a name yet, and I came across, blessed be the

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Lord my rock who prepares my hands for war, my fingers for battle, and it just lit me up. I came up out of my chair.

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I might have come up, come to think of it, but to me that's a clear directive from Scripture that the

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Lord is saying, hey, you have got to get ready. You have to do these things. And that's part of, I take almost,

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I have in the past taken almost an apologetic viewpoint of church security, of really trying to help to defend the reasons why we need it.

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So I will sometimes have Scripture that I'll use along with that, but to me it always goes back to Psalm 144 about the reasons why we need to have these sort of things.

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And I was really blessed that I was a featured speaker on church security down in Dallas for WFX Network and Worship Facilities Magazine, and it was really remarkable because we had, afterwards there was a small group of men.

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One of them, he had a new church in a small town in Arkansas. He had 20 members.

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There was another man who had, and they weren't kidding about things being bigger in Texas. I could not believe some of the size of the churches being represented down there.

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But I told him, I said, man, I keep talking about megachurches in Tulsa, I think I'm going to quit using that phrase now.

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But this man said his church had 8 ,000 members, and they had a total of about 12 ,000 people come through every weekend for all their services.

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He had over a hundred security officers underneath his command, and he attended all three of my seminars.

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But we were all sitting around talking, so we have the pastor of a church in a small town in Arkansas that I can't remember the name of right now.

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Forgive me when you hear this later, Pastor White, but he has 20 people to this mega megachurch, and we were all agreeing on some of the same base concepts of what you need to do.

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And that was an eye -opening, even for me, after being so deeply involved in this for so many years, and with the education training experience that came into it, one of the things that I took away from Dallas is that really there are some certain things that all the churches need to be lined up on, regardless of the size of the church, in order to implement and have proper church security with that proper balance.

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So let's say there is a pastor or even a church member listening to today's program.

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They are totally fascinated, intrigued, and enthusiastic about what you are offering, and they call you up.

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They say, Tim, we would love to have you come out to our church to conduct a seminar.

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Tell us exactly, obviously in summary form, what will be going on at that seminar, and what costs will be required for these seminars and that sort of thing.

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It depends on if they're basically within a reasonable amount from Tulsa, and I'm from Missouri, so I always look for excuses to go back and see mom anyway.

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But if they're within, you know, a few hours drive, then it's something that's going to be a little different than if they're here in Tulsa.

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But say they're pretty close. Ideally, what I would do is I'd come in on a Sunday, and I would observe.

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And then the last 10 minutes of the service, I would get up and I would speak to the congregation.

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And I would reassure them, and that's something I want to talk about before my time's up, about how critical it is to have proper communication.

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But for now, I'll just say there's certain things I will lay out for the congregation so they can understand. From there,

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I'll give a four -hour seminar to the people who want to be a part of the church protection team, and I will also invite people who may not be on it but are elders or part of the church if they want to observe.

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And so I'll be teaching them everything from radio discipline, how to assign zones, how to even schedule in, and I'll find what's going to be the director of CPT, the church protection team.

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We'll go over radio discipline. We're going to go over some role playing scenarios of different types of people coming in, some different types of threats.

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And then I go through kind of a bullet list of, here are some of the things that you need to know. And one thing about my style, and it goes back to the same with Street Edge, I fully believe in a conversation methodology of teaching, whether I'm teaching 10 people or 1 ,000.

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And what I mean by that is societal change is affected by an expert getting up in front of a bunch of people and talking to them.

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But how it's truly begun, how it's truly affected, is whenever people just sit down and have conversations.

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So I mean, to me, that's how this country was built, and this is how families and businesses are built. So I want it to be that I'm giving ideas, and I'm teaching the critical thinking skills, and teaching a new way of thinking so that then in the coming weeks,

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I don't need to be there anymore, especially if they're in a different state, but I can give them the tools to equip them that they can sit down and have conversations as a church in the coming weeks, along with some of the resources

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I give them, to be able to customize the church security team to their church, because each church is going to have different challenges, different situations.

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So all of that is covered, including the physical part, and then I'll teach two or three techniques against some of the most common street attacks, so that if someone does, you know, throw a punch, they try and tackle things like that.

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So we cover all of that in an afternoon, and then what happens is the following Sunday, I come in and I oversee the newly created church protection team, and I observe,

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I try not to get involved unless I'm needed, and then after that, I write an eight to ten page document that I would then submit to the church within the next week, and after that, they're under the umbrella of 144.

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I tell them if you need me, I'm a phone call away, and you know, as we continue to grow, you know, webinars and things like that will be a part of it, but I truly see that, that once someone is part of that, then

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I'll do everything I can to help out, and once they understand some of the base concepts, one phone call can be incredibly effective in helping to overcome situations that they may find challenging without getting a little bit of further assistance.

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Now going back, I'm assuming then that there will be fluctuating or a range of fees required that would depend upon how large the church is, and how far you are traveling, and things like that.

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Perhaps there are different levels of a seminar that a church can have conducted for them.

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Give us more details about that. And I mean, even for local churches, I've even told them, especially the small ones that really have my heart,

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I've even told them that I would be willing to give them even just a free written report, or just for a minimal charge, just going in and overseeing, you know, just seeing where they're at, but if you go all the way up to the full -blown one,

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I mean, it could be anywhere from a few hundred up to a couple thousand, but like you said, it really depends on the church size, and there's ways that I can help to offset that too.

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Like the church in Arkansas, you know, we're talking about getting a few different churches together and bringing them in, and then there's some other things that we can do as well.

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I tell them that, you know, if they're within an hour or so, or two hours, then it might be where I come back out and give a follow -up physical seminar, continuing with the actual physical techniques, where the individual church security team members are paying for it, because if they're paying, you know, $99 for a four -hour seminar, which is very reasonable, and, you know, there's a handful of them, that can offset the cost of the church.

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So what I'm getting at is, I am definitely, I mean, at this point, this is practically a volunteer ministry in a lot of ways, because, you know, my heart is keeping people safe.

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I am working to make it, you know, where this is something that I can make a true living off of. But I can tell you this, that as long as a church comes to me and they're transparent and their intentions are pure, that, you know, we want this, but here's our budget, we'll figure something out.

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I mean, most small churches have got a large church that's behind them, so, you know, I always tell people, let's not even worry too much about the finances first.

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Let's just see where you're at, and then let's come up with a plan of action and see what, like you said, what level of involvement

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I need to get into, because, I mean, in Dallas, I taught three different seminars throughout the day, barely glanced at my notes, and I felt like I needed about five more days, you know, to cover things.

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So there's no shortage of material, but at the same time, it can be as simple as just a consultation to help set them on the right path.

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And let's see, we have a listener in White Plains, New York, RJ, who asks, what are the legal liabilities that are at risk when someone from a church may wrongly cause injury to an individual that they suspected was a violent criminal but turned out to be something else?

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Perhaps the person had epilepsy or was doing something that was completely innocuous and harmless and was viewed in a different way than it really was intended to be or was involuntarily occurring.

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Well, first, that's a fantastic question. Second, I'm going to make this crystal clear. I'm not in any way, shape, or form giving legal advice.

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And in fact, I tell people, you need to not just consult an attorney, you need to consult your insurance agent and make sure and see if this is going to impact your church in any way and your insurance.

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But one of the key things is this, I will not have anything to do with a church that says that they're going to pay their security team, because that changes everything.

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It's a volunteer church security team. At that time, if someone does something, it's no different than anyone else in a private business who are doing something or acting out of order.

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So, you know, those are the things that the church needs to really carefully look at. Now, the example that he gave, what went through my mind, and I excuse the hubris here, but a couple of examples that were in there, if someone had attended one of my seminars and they overreacted like that, well, they would have attended one of my seminars, for one thing.

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But if someone overreacted to the extent that it was clear that it was negligent, one of the things that was talked about in law enforcement,

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I talk about in Street Edge, is circumstances and intent. And that's something that is going to be looked at.

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And so if the circumstances and intent is such that it was clear that this person was just radically overacting, then they should have never been put on the church protection team to start with.

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And that's something I teach as far as the vetting process whenever they're creating a team. But then secondly, yeah, if they were negligent, yeah, they're probably going to be open for a lawsuit that's going to be against that person, and possibly against that church.

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That's why church, like I said before, the time for making excuses is over, but that doesn't mean to be sloppy in deciding who you want to be in your church security team.

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I mean, if I have someone come in full fatigued and their pants are bloused and they've got black makeup on and they show up under their eyes and they show up saying they're wanting to be a security team,

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I'm going to say, I think you'd be better served as an usher. Ha ha ha ha! Not dressed like that, though.

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So, you know, and one of the things that I talk about is it's very important to get to know your local police department.

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Police officers have local discretion, officer discretion. And I always tell them that.

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I say before, if I'm doing the Sunday followed by Sunday, I give lots of pieces of homework.

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And one of the, contact your police department and have the officer that is assigned this area, the sergeant even, to come out and talk to them and just say, hey, this is what we're doing.

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Do you have any guidance? Do you have any advice? You know, and let them know. First off, they'll really appreciate that. Second, they'll have some free resources for you.

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And third, they'll get to know you. You know, I was talking about this down in Dallas, that if there was one man who just impressed me right off the bat, and he asked a very similar question.

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And I said, you know what, if I was a cop, and I didn't got to know you, because I said, after five minutes, I'd give you the keys to my house.

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He was just one of those guys. And I said, if I was a cop, and you had taken someone down, and in the process, you dislocated their shoulder, or there was something like that, and it wasn't like the guy was just lying in a bloody pulp, but like one of those injuries that can happen in the blink of an eye,

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I would look at it as, this guy probably didn't deserve to get taken down this hard, if, you know, officer

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X felt like he needed to do this. So that's another way to offset that, is making sure that the local law enforcement has met your team, that they've talked to the pastor, they understand where your heart is, and then just keep the wannabe

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Rambos off your team. I had organized,

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I should say, a number of years ago, a theological debate, one of many theological debates that I have organized, public moderated debates.

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And this was a debate between a Christian, my friend for many years, going back to 1995,

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. He debated an imam in New York City of a very predominant, popular mosque amongst the

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Muslim community in New York. And this debate was held in a very large, old church in Ridgewood, Queens, New York.

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And I remember that I was standing at the doorway as people were filing in, and there was this man who had been for over an hour, pacing back and forth, behaving very oddly, hiding behind a tree and ducking his head back and forth from out from behind the tree.

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And he was not fitting the description of what you might stereotypically think a

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Muslim would look like. That doesn't mean necessarily that he wasn't a Muslim, but he was a Caucasian male, dressed in normal American outfit, you know, attire.

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But the thing that was very unusual about him is that he was carrying on his hip a very long sword.

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So I was getting ready to call 911, and then he approached the doorway of the church.

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He was online, and I stopped him, and I said to him, I'm sorry, you can't bring that in here.

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What are you kidding me? You're bringing a sword into a debate between a Christian and a Muslim? And he said, it's not a sword, man.

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And I said, well, what is it then? He says, it's an umbrella. So I said, well, show me. And he pulled out the umbrella from the sheath.

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It was intentionally, obviously designed to look like a sword, but it was an umbrella. I said, well, you can't even bring that in here, because people are going to think it's a sword.

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And this is a very sensitive theological debate between Muslims and Christians.

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I'm not going to permit. You're going to have to give that to me, and you can reclaim it at the end of the event. And he very grudgingly did that.

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But that's kind of an obvious thing, seeing somebody carrying a sword into your church, especially after they were pacing back and forth for about an hour across the street and hiding behind a tree.

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Now, what are some of the things that might not be as obvious as that, that people should be looking out for?

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In fact, since we have to go to our first break, I'm going to have you answer that when we return from the break. But things that the average

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Christian, the average parishioner, congregant, however you want to describe the average person, in addition to the pastors and elders and deacons, what they should be looking out for when it comes to someone who may be about to cause trouble.

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And some of these things are unavoidable, because some people can conceal their motives very cleverly and successfully.

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But perhaps you could give us some helpful hints after we return from the break.

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If anybody would like to join the listeners who have already emailed us, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

28:55

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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35:23

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnsen. If you just tuned us in, the first guest that we have today on the program is

35:31

Tim Fancher, and Tim Fancher is the founder and director of Psalm 144

35:39

Church Protection Seminars and American Street Edge Self -Defense Systems. He's a fourth -degree black belt in American Kenpo Karate with over 30 years of martial arts experience.

35:52

He's a former police officer and a recognized expert in church security, personal protection, and children's abduction prevention.

36:02

In the second hour, we're going to be joined by Larry Pratt, P -R -A -T -T.

36:08

As seen on Fox News, he's executive director emeritus at Guns Owners of America, and he is going to be addressing the same theme that we are addressing with Tim Fancher, biblically ordained measures to protect your church from assassins, terrorists, violent criminals, and madmen.

36:28

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

36:33

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And forgive me for being a bit frazzled today and tongue -tied, but we were having technical difficulties before the program started.

36:45

It all had to do, we found out, with the daylight savings time changing the time that our program airs, so it kind of messed up the system there in Texas that live -streams our show.

36:58

So I'm a bit frazzled still, but I think I'm handling the fairly adequately.

37:06

Anyway, the question I asked you, Tim, before the break, especially since you are a former police officer, there should be,

37:16

I'm assuming, things that you would know from your experience about, like, for instance, if you were standing guard at some particular event, even if it wasn't a church service, you might be trained to be on the lookout for certain peculiar activities, behaviors, appearances that might trigger in your mind, this person may very likely be up to no good or have violent intentions.

37:44

What might some of those things be, if there are any that are foolproof, or not foolproof, but as close to foolproof as you can possibly have?

37:55

Well, yes, and you were giving the example of the person who was pacing around for an hour before a debate of Muslim versus Christianity, and earlier, you remember when

38:06

I talked about circumstances of intent? So look at it from that, look at it through that lens.

38:12

Even someone who's new to this field, why would this guy be pacing around for an hour?

38:17

That's not normal. More than likely, the first thing that I would think is that he's working himself up to come inside and to start trouble.

38:27

Or, even more problematic, what if he was waiting for his accomplices, his confederates, so to speak, to go in and cause some trouble?

38:35

So I'm glad that you went up and you confronted him, but you know, like you said, he has an umbrella that looks like a sword.

38:43

So no matter how you look at this, this person was seeking to cause a disruption of some kind.

38:51

When you speak of standing guard, that's what we call command presence. And command presence is where you have to be careful, though, because the command presence you would want standing outside of an exclusive event at a nightclub or a restaurant is going to be different than the command presence of what you want outside of a church.

39:08

Outside of a church, you want it to be where if someone is scouting, they can see, okay, they know what's going on, they've got someone who's paying attention, but at the same time, it's not going to scare off the grandma down the street, you know, so you know, that's part of that tension.

39:23

And that's part of what I teach when I go into churches. But you know, the thing is, I always tell people, you really have to learn to trust your gut as well.

39:31

A lot of times people talk about it, it's desirable to have a sixth sense, a sixth sense is called women's intuition, being street smart, so forth.

39:39

What I like to say is we all have a sixth sense. It is simply all five senses working in perfect harmony. So once you start to flip that switch, and that's part of what

39:47

I do with my students, whether it's Street Edge or Psalm 144, and you tap into that, you're going to more quickly be able to understand and learn that something doesn't feel right here.

39:58

And so you need to learn and how you're going to go ahead and you're going to approach somebody. So the example you gave,

40:04

I mean, if there was someone on my team, and if that had gone on for more than 30 seconds, and they didn't, they didn't immediately radio someone else to be able to get back up and let it be known,

40:15

I'd be addressing that officer once the situation was over with, because that shouldn't have gone on the moment it was clear that he was pacing back and forth.

40:22

So those are the sort of things that, you know, when you have that heightened level of vigilance, but it doesn't mean that you would necessarily approach in a super aggressive way, again, circumstances and intent.

40:32

But here's the tricky part. So I'm going to start off with, you know, almost like a question back to you.

40:38

But first with the scenario. Say you started your own broadcast company, traditional business offices during the day, and you commissioned me to build a security team there.

40:49

It's 10am on a Monday morning, and a man walks in, he's sweaty, he's red, his shirt, his dress shirt's untucked, it's wrinkly, his eyes are darting all over the place.

40:59

Without question, I need to respond to him as Officer Fancher. In other words, I need to respond to him with full blown command presence, with full on authority, go up, make contact, because more than likely, there's something very bad going on for someone to walk into a business environment looking like that.

41:17

Okay, so let's then say you start a church and you hire someone 44. And I'm Director of Security that day.

41:24

And that same guy walks in, then an or an officer sees someone like that.

41:30

What if they go up to that man with full command presence, and they go up in officer mode, and they're going up in that in that very alpha sort of mentality.

41:39

And what it was was that man had discovered the night before that his wife had been cheating on him with his boss, he'd lost his job.

41:46

And he was on the way down to a bridge to kill himself. But he saw the church and thought, I'll stop in there.

41:52

And I'll see if they can help me in any way. And that's why he looked like that. What's going to happen to that man if someone approaches him with that sort of aggression?

41:59

That is what I mean. That is the difficulty is addressing that tension in a church setting, security setting verse almost anything else.

42:08

And that's the sort of thing where you have to learn those descriptors, those indicators, and the baseline of circumstances intent.

42:15

Yes, contact should be made, because that man's going to need help. But that's some of the things that we do in role playing.

42:22

But you can't immediately respond in an aggressive manner, because you don't know. Because it might be, you know, the truly brokenhearted, seeking

42:29

Christ. And if someone comes up and practically tackles them, you know, you've not only just lost a life, you've lost a soul.

42:35

And so you have to learn how to be able to make contact, ask those questions, but have the proper body positioning.

42:42

So if it does turn physical, you can take him down, take him down quickly. Or if nothing else, if he is someone seeking help, he still shouldn't go to the congregation.

42:50

I teach to have what we call a prayer room set up. And that's where you can isolate and take someone off and kind of do an evaluation and see what's going on with them.

42:58

And then at that time, you know, if they start to calm down, it looks okay. Still have an usher that's already received a little bit of training of how to sit with that person and kind of keep an eye on them.

43:08

So those are some of the really critical things that the differences between elite level church security and someone who's kind of throwing something together and just sort of hoping for the best.

43:19

And I'm assuming that churches who begin to lean toward starting this volunteer security team, it would be very wise, a no -brainer, to find out who amongst the congregation and the leadership might already know, or it might be even well known to everybody.

43:46

I'm assuming that the first choice would be those who are either active or retired police officers.

43:53

And military and even security. And you know, and one thing, and I don't imagine cops would be upset with me for saying this, because it was said to me a long time ago, but I gotta admit, at first I kind of ruffled my feathers, but then

44:04

I realized it's true. Police work and security work is so different that sometimes someone who's an actual cop isn't the greatest security guy, and vice versa.

44:12

Because security is more about preventative measures, and a lot of times, especially with how understaffed, because of how underappreciated the police officers of America are, a lot of times they're so short -staffed they just run from call to call to call.

44:25

So they're used to showing up after the fact. And you know, God bless them for what they do, but it is a different animal when you're looking at that.

44:33

So you know, having a mix of seeing if you have some security experience, police, military, and just having those right intentions, and then just study.

44:41

There's so many free resources out there that's online. The one thing I really wanted to say before, to make sure before we run out of time, there's always going to be more reasons not to start a security team than there is to start one.

44:55

There's always going to be the fear, like the question earlier. I mean, it was a great question, I'm not diminishing it, but there is a little bit of, let's face it, fear of, oh my gosh, are we going to get sued?

45:05

You know, oh my gosh, are we going to be looked at the wrong way? Are we going to scare the congregation? Are we going to lose members? There's always more reasons not to.

45:12

But the Lord didn't give us a spirit of fear, and what needs to be said, what I said to the congregation, this is being done in love.

45:18

The pastor loves you enough that he's taking these measures. This is being proactive, not reactive.

45:24

So assuming nothing's happened in the church, hey, Pastor Smith hired me because he loves you. You're going to see some small changes, but it's not because of an intimate threat.

45:34

But there is an intimate threat, and that's why I was brought in, that the church needs to know. It's about transparency as well.

45:40

But what I tell people is they have to understand that this is being done in love. The Lord didn't give us a spirit of fear.

45:46

And along those lines, my two thoughts here are this. If you had someone who said, hey, this guy doesn't know

45:53

God. He's leading a really dangerous, reckless lifestyle doing drugs. Would you pray for him?

45:59

If you heard of a fellow Christian who said, well, I don't really feel like it, you'd be shocked. That's a fair statement, right

46:05

Chris? Oh, of course. Okay. So what if, then isn't it the same thing, though, that if we have in the natural the ability to protect the children, the elderly, the women, everybody in the church, if we have the wherewithal, if we have the means, the opportunity to protect them, aren't we called in the same way to protect our brothers and sisters in Christ here on earth from natural threats, the exact same way we are supernatural?

46:33

I don't know a Christian who doesn't want to just jump into it when you talk about spiritual warfare or praying for someone's soul, but yet there's a resistance to implementing security.

46:43

Isn't it the same thing? It's protecting. It all comes down to protection. Protection from evil spirits, protection from evil deeds, protection from evil people.

46:52

So along those lines, the other reason I call it a church protection team is because the acronym is

46:57

CPT. There's another CPT, church prayer team. I always say to a church, if you're going to do what 144 mandates, this is one of the most important things, because I always say there's certain things that aren't going to work for you.

47:10

Disregard them. I tell people, if you're agreeing with everything I say in a four hour seminar, something's wrong.

47:16

I mean, there's going to be different opinions, different things, but there are certain things that I say there's a hundred percent, there's no leeway.

47:23

One of them is you need to start a church prayer team, the other CPT, and get people who will promise to pray for each individual volunteer church protection team member by name, as well as for the church.

47:38

Because I'll tell you, and I've heard story after story about this, you want to experience supernatural warfare, pastors?

47:44

You watch what happens when you start to enter into building your own church security team. That's another thing that I teach and I talk about, because I've seen it time and again.

47:52

So it's critical that you have your church prayer team, because that will also help to keep the spirit of fear out of there.

47:58

So don't let fear hold you back from creating your team. There's always going to be more reasons not to, but what happens when you have so much as one hurt or lost child, let alone all the way up to what happened in Texas with the mass shooting?

48:10

You simply must just get started on it. You just have to get started. That's all there is to it. And we have

48:18

BB from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who asks, is there any instinctual things that you learned from your training as a police officer that you had to unlearn to be an expert in your current field?

48:33

Since, as you said, there can be very different things about being a police officer than a security guard.

48:40

Well, two things. One, this is a sociology nerd in me, so I won't call it instinctual. I'll just say a learned reaction.

48:47

But the thing is, and I don't want to make too big of a deal of it, because I wasn't even a cop that long.

48:53

It was a long time ago that I could barely pay my bills, and I had an opportunity to open a full -time

48:59

Kempo Karate school. The thing is, though, my absolute best friend is a federal agent. I have a lot of cop buddies.

49:05

I've done so many ride -alongs. I've stayed in the law enforcement circle, if you will.

49:10

So I don't want to misrepresent there. My passion has been keeping people safe through First Street, self -defense, and now in church security.

49:18

However, the academy was so intense that it was such a big part of who I was, and because I continued to study on my own, and I implemented many of the things

49:28

I learned in the academy and during my time in law enforcement and the street edge, there are things that are as natural to me as if I'd been a cop for a couple of decades.

49:38

I'd say one of the tougher things, really, in church security is what I talked about, that you see someone who looks like a threat, of walking up to them with the proper balance of command presence.

49:48

You don't want to immediately scare somebody, but you want to make it clear that, I'm in charge here.

49:54

I'm making sure you're not a threat, and if you are a threat, I will neutralize you. I will take you down. And all that has to be communicated non -verbally in a matter of moments.

50:03

And so you can't just walk up to someone with the John Wayne walk and try to act like you're the super -duper tough guy, where sometimes there's security situations where I'm walking up and I'm trying to look like the toughest guy out there, because I'm by myself at two in the morning on a college campus or something, back when

50:21

I was doing security there. And so the way I would approach had to be very, I had to really kind of modify that for the church security settings, and that's the sort of thing that I teach my team.

50:33

Body language is one of the most important things in church security, when you're making that approach.

50:40

And then there's just numerous things that we can't get into now, especially with time wrapping up, but of recognizing and understanding predatory behavior.

50:47

You know, that's all the part of the things that I teach in the actual seminars. Well, we are running out of time, and we have to go to our break at 54 minutes into the hour.

51:00

So if you could, please summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners in about three minutes' time.

51:07

Just what I said, that you have to, don't let fear hold you back. Take the small steps.

51:13

Learn how to do it. I mean, I will go just about anywhere in the country if there's an opportunity, you know, and if it's financially viable for me to do that.

51:22

But if I can't, just start taking small steps. Even if it's just one person whose law enforcement or military background says that they'll just stand at the door this

51:33

Saturday, tell them to wear a black blazer and black slacks and just look professional, and just try not to look scary, but look like, you know,

51:40

I'm keeping an eye on things. Worship Facilities Magazine has published five of my articles that are free online, and they have steps.

51:48

What I'm saying is and just balance things. You have to, again, church security is unlike anything else, but just dig.

51:56

Get online, find those resources, and if you're thinking about it, stop thinking about it and do it. Like I said, even if that's one person standing at the door this

52:04

Sunday, it's better than nothing. And again, make sure that whenever you're building that, if you're not formally going through me, make sure to contact an attorney and an insurance agent to find out some considerations are there, and then talk to your local fire department for safety tips.

52:19

Talk to your local law enforcement for whatever tips they can give you. Well, thank you so much, especially for being available at such a very short notice before our program today, when we found out that Nate Pikowitz, our originally scheduled guest, had to postpone due to an unforeseen schedule conflict.

52:39

So, I want to make sure that our have your contact information. First of all, the website is psalm144 .org.

52:50

Do you have any other contact information that you care to give, Tim? If they just go to Facebook and put in Psalm 144

52:57

Church Protection Seminars, that'll pop up. My name is Timothy J. Fancher.

53:02

It's F as in Frank, F -A -N -C -H -E -R. There's some different things that are out there, some different media things.

53:07

If you go to fox23 .com, the local news interviewed me just last night.

53:13

So, just remember Psalm 144 Church Protection. You can find me. There's my personal email address, all the way to contacting me through the site, and just let me know what

53:22

I can do to help keep your church safe. Amen. Well, thank you very much. That's psalm144 .org,

53:27

psalm144 .org. Thank you, Tim Fancher, and we look forward to an opportunity to have you on the program again.

53:35

Certainly, Chris, and may God bless you and your ministry through your radio. Thank you, and don't go away, because coming up during the second hour of the program, we have

53:44

Larry Pratt joining us as seen on Fox News. Larry Pratt, Executive Director Emeritus of Gun Owners of America, and we're going to be continuing the theme,

53:56

Biblically Ordained Measures to Protect Your Church from Assassins, Terrorists, Violent Criminals, and Madmen.

54:02

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Don't go away. God willing, we will be right back after these messages with Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America.

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01:04:58

Before we introduce our second guest for the day, who is

01:05:04

Larry Pratt, as seen on Fox News, he is Executive Director Emeritus of Gun Owners of America, who will be continuing our discussion on biblically ordained measures to protect your church from assassins, terrorists, violent criminals, and madmen.

01:05:21

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01:05:35

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01:09:45

We could truly use them, I should say. Well, now we are launching into our second hour with our second guest today,

01:09:53

Larry Pratt, as seen on Fox News. He is Executive Director Emeritus of Gun Owners of America.

01:10:00

And we are continuing the theme that we began in the first hour with our first guest,

01:10:07

Tim Fancher, of Psalm 144 Church Protection Seminars. The theme being,

01:10:13

Biblically ordained measures to protect your church from assassins, terrorists, violent criminals, and madmen. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio, Larry Pratt.

01:10:24

Hi Chris, thanks for having me back. Oh, it's excellent to have you back. Obviously, we wish it could be under better circumstances, because usually the door is open for a guest like you when there is a horrific nationally or globally notorious event, such as the one that was experienced by the

01:10:48

First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas yesterday during their morning worship service, where nearly 30 people were murdered by a crazed gunman.

01:10:58

And I'm sure we're still not up to date completely on who this person was and his motives and so on.

01:11:08

But one thing that happens every time these things occur, as you well know,

01:11:14

Larry, we will hear from people, not only notorious liberals in the media who are blaming guns rather than the evil hearts of wicked men for things that happen like this, but we also are perhaps surprised from time to time to hear from our own brothers in Christ, even those that are theologically nearly identical to us in many respects, but who will say that to think that the protection of our lives and the lives of our loved ones using firearms, that somehow they think is unchristlike, it really militates against the gentle and compassionate and selfless spirit of the

01:12:01

Christian described in the Bible. And of course, as you know, Matthew chapter 5, 38 through 40, is something that is frequently brought up.

01:12:10

In fact, it's instinctively, I think, the first thing that those who would be in opposition to using firearms to protect yourself or those you love, the verse which reads, you have heard it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, do not resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

01:12:36

If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.

01:12:43

And we'll get into that in a moment, but before we have you exegete that text and talk about other pertinent things to our discussion, tell our listeners about Gun Owners of America.

01:12:55

Well, Chris, we lobby the Congress in Washington, D .C. That's our primary mission, and we're tasked by our members with doing whatever we can to get the

01:13:09

Congress to respect their oath of office, which in the case of the oath means to uphold the

01:13:18

Constitution and thus to respect the Second Amendment. So when they start talking about how they can pass legislation restricting the ability of citizens to own and to carry firearms, they've crossed the line, and we let them know.

01:13:34

And there are some that are no longer in Congress because they didn't want to pay a nevermind to that admonition.

01:13:43

Well, tell us something about you personally so our listeners know exactly whom is speaking. There are a lot of Republicans and Conservatives, perhaps even conservative

01:13:53

Democrats and Independents, who are all in favor of the freedoms of gun owners in this country and are firm defenders of the

01:14:03

Second Amendment, but they are devoid of the Holy Spirit or any relationship to Christ and his church.

01:14:08

You, on the other hand, are a firmly committed Christian. And if you could tell us something about your background and what led you into this area of coming to the point where you were the director of Gun Owners of America.

01:14:22

Well, for some time before I wrote on the subject, I had been working to defend the

01:14:30

Second Amendment from unconstitutional actions by the politicians. And it became evident, especially after I became an elder in my

01:14:40

Presbyterian church, that I really needed to put something down in a clear exegesis of what

01:14:48

I was doing from a biblical perspective. And so I wrote a piece, which is still up on our website from,

01:14:54

I believe it's 1999, to the effect of, what does the Bible say about gun control?

01:15:01

And as one leading clergyman quipped one time when I was talking to him about this, he said, well,

01:15:07

I didn't know that the Bible ever used the word gun. And if I had been a little sharper,

01:15:14

I would have said, you know, I never have been able to find the word trinity in the scripture either.

01:15:20

But I do believe that it talks about both. And in the case of guns, it talks about the use of lethal force in self -defense, in defense of innocent life.

01:15:32

And it was written before firearms were available, but obviously the availability of a different technology doesn't change the fact that it enables the person needing defense to use that technology to defend life, which is a very basic imperative in the scripture.

01:15:54

Well, let's go to that classic text that I read from Matthew 5, 38 through 40.

01:16:01

It is the go -to text, even when non -Christians, not only Christians use that, but you'll have people who are obviously using the name of Jesus Christ to try to defend a point or an agenda that they're trying to make.

01:16:15

They try to turn Jesus Christ into a figure from history that is purely about love and being devoid of all wrath and anger and righteous indignation and a

01:16:32

God who is, or a figure, who is merely a passive person who believes that we should never use force of any kind to defend ourselves or loved ones.

01:16:47

In fact, as you probably remember, it shocked many of us and disturbed many of us in the theologically reformed community, conservative

01:16:57

Calvinistic community, when somebody that we look up to, John Piper, basically said that if his wife and family were being attacked and being murdered, he would not use violent force to stop them because that would ensure that they would enter hell if he were to kill them.

01:17:14

And many of us were shaking our heads in disbelief and frustration with Brother Piper.

01:17:22

But if you could, how do you respond to things like Matthew 5 and things like what John Piper had said?

01:17:29

Well, the idea that we try to defuse a situation by turning the other cheek has nothing to do with the defense of innocent life that's being threatened, say, in the case of a dirt bag down in Sutherland, Texas, south of Houston.

01:17:47

I guess it's more, it is south, but it's also not that far from San Antonio, be as it may.

01:17:52

That was a situation where it was extremely legitimate for the neighbor,

01:18:01

Wilbur Ford, something like that, I believe is his name, to grab his rifle and do his best to bring the dirt bag down.

01:18:11

And apparently this guy hit some kind of impressive shot.

01:18:17

He grabbed his rifle. He's, I guess he's got it slung over his back for a bit.

01:18:23

He's running along after having grabbed a magazine and a handful of ammo, and he's loading the magazine barefoot and he gets into this truck and is able to put a round between the body protection armor, well, armor, so to speak, that's being worn by the dirt bag.

01:18:46

And that made a tremendous difference in being able to ultimately bring him over.

01:18:54

And the guy, evidently, we think, committed suicide. We're not sure that it was anything other, ultimately, than that, but I would have no problem if the defender had actually been responsible for his demise.

01:19:08

Yeah, I heard that that was still a theory that that may have been what happened, that the good citizen had fired a gun.

01:19:18

And perhaps it was still a theory that that shot may have ended the life of the perpetrator.

01:19:23

It certainly ended the attack. And once his gun, the good guy's gun, started blazing, the bad guy apparently got on his vehicle, ran away, and then may have been gunned down when his vehicle ran off the road.

01:19:42

There's some of these details that it's not clear yet. That's not unusual. In a situation like this, where information comes tumbling in, and some of it's spot on, some of it's somewhat off or a lot off, we'll find out within the next several days.

01:19:59

But the main thing is that there was a, actually two citizens who were willing to put themselves on the line, the driver of the vehicle and the neighbor that grabbed his rifle, and pursue the dirt bag.

01:20:12

And it was because of their action that either they shot him at the moment or later on, maybe.

01:20:21

But because they were armed and in pursuit, he stopped shooting at the church.

01:20:27

Almost certainly lives were saved because of good guys with a gun. And for John Piper to want to argue that somehow the fellow firing his rifle in defense is putting himself in risk of hellfire, sir, that's just a huge distortion of what the scripture teaches.

01:20:51

Again, I would direct people to the piece that we've got on our website, what the Bible says about gun control.

01:20:57

It virtually discusses every text on the subject of using violence, lawful violence in self -defense, in defense of innocent life.

01:21:09

And the idea that we should turn ourselves over to the dirt bags of the world is really,

01:21:18

I think, offensive to God, that somehow we think we have a better idea and it's okay for the evil to just run rampant and us to do nothing.

01:21:28

What is that all about? Yeah, some might say that it is being derelict of duty to protect those that are far more helpless than we are.

01:21:44

But going to perhaps a more, for lack of a better term, selfish reason when you're preserving your own life, even that is completely legitimate, is it?

01:21:56

Are we supposed to just allow ourselves to be murdered because we don't want the perpetrator, the one murdering us, to go to hell if we were to kill him?

01:22:07

Are we to be that selfless that we would allow something like that to happen perhaps if we are married with children even, they would be robbed of our existence in their lives?

01:22:19

I think if Piper thinks about it a little bit more, hopefully he'll come to see that his advice, his conclusion, his recommendation is that we become complicit with the evildoers.

01:22:35

And that's just insane. That doesn't make any scriptural sense at all.

01:22:41

Nowhere are we to be party to crime, to violence, to the evil. We're to do what we...

01:22:48

In fact, there's a proverb back in Proverbs 25 that says that for the wicked, for the righteous to give way to the wicked is the same as a murky spring or a polluted well.

01:23:01

Pretty stinky stuff. I don't think God really likes the idea at all.

01:23:07

And that's just one particular verse. There's plenty of others. We can go to the New Testament. We can see other verses in the

01:23:13

Old Testament. The fact of the matter is pacifism is not a biblical position.

01:23:21

And I'm sorry that somebody of Piper's stature and intellect would come to that conclusion, but the brother is wrong.

01:23:31

Yes, and of course he had read or said that quite a while ago.

01:23:36

I don't know if he's ever recanted that. I've never seen anything or heard anything. I don't either, yeah. But it actually really militates against his

01:23:46

Calvinism because obviously if those criminals are murdered, or should

01:23:57

I say they wouldn't be murdered, if they were killed in an attempt to protect your own life or the lives of those you love, that person's eternal destiny is not going to change because they've been killed without an opportunity to repent.

01:24:15

If they were going to repent, according to the Reformed faith, they would have already done that. Right. They wouldn't have been doing what they were doing if they had repented.

01:24:24

So I think it's an argument about kind of equivalent to angels on the head of a pin.

01:24:31

One wag was needling a Calvinist preacher and said, well, preacher,

01:24:38

I see you're packing a gun. Don't you believe in predestination? He said, I most certainly do.

01:24:43

I said, well, then why are you packing that gun? Wouldn't the bad guy just be taken care of somehow? Otherwise, he said, listen, it may be that this is the day that the

01:24:53

Lord has ordained that that bad guy die. Right. Do you think some of the problem or the confusion over this is based on a mishandling of a very serious truth?

01:25:08

We are to be imitators of Christ. I mean, the word

01:25:14

Christian even means little Christs. We are to seek to follow, honor and obey and imitate

01:25:20

Christ. But that obviously does not require that we duplicate everything that Christ did, because Christ had a unique mission on this earth.

01:25:31

And he was ordained before the world began to suffer and die in Calvary and to willingly lay down his life.

01:25:41

He was to be passive when the authorities wrongly arrested him and tortured him and nailed him to that tree, that cross.

01:25:54

He was not supposed to resist against any of that because of the fact that that was the one and only foreordained plan of God through which he purchased the redemption of his people.

01:26:09

And if I might jump in, if any of us were to think that somehow we should imitate

01:26:15

Christ in that, what? Are we saying that by our selflessly giving our life as a sacrifice to the evil, that somehow that will have the same salvific effect of Christ's death on the cross?

01:26:30

Really? Right. We're going to our final break right now.

01:26:35

If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Larry Pratt, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:26:45

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state and country of residence, and only remain anonymous if you are asking about a personal and private matter that would compel you not to identify yourself.

01:26:59

But other than that, please just give us at least your first name, city and state and country of residence if you live outside of the good old

01:27:06

USA. Don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back with Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America and more of our discussion.

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01:30:45

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01:31:01

Christian to own because of the swirling controversies, debates, and disagreements, even in the body of Christ, about the issue of gun ownership and the issue of self -defense using necessary violence and the use of not only necessary violence to protect yourself but those whom you love.

01:31:24

And if you have a question for our guest, Larry Pratt, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:31:30

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And, Larry, we do have a listener in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, CJ, who says, one of the concerns that people have in regard to gun -toting parishioners or congregants is that if something were to occur, people, those unskilled in handling these weapons, may wind up injuring or killing as many of his fellow congregants as the murderer is killing, and therefore the person or people may be causing more harm than good.

01:32:12

How do you respond to this kind of argument? Well, that is a question that comes up, and it's always put in the same verb tense that this one has been put in the conditional tense.

01:32:28

Well, this could happen. This might happen, but there's never any reference to a time when it actually did happen.

01:32:36

In fact, we're talking about a situation where it wasn't a congregant, but it was a neighbor across the street, heard what was going on, grabbed his rifle, figured out who was the good guy and who was the bad guy, and took care of business.

01:32:53

It just seems to me that the argument that something bad could happen should never be used to accomplish an anti -self -defense objective, even if that's not the intended purpose of the argument.

01:33:10

It's a kind of a nervous nelly kind of response that is based on, again, things that might happen but don't happen.

01:33:22

And obviously, you would insist or urge very passionately that if people are to arm themselves, that they should be very familiar with the use, the safe use, and successful use of these firearms that they are purchasing in order to bring about the desired outcome of protecting lives, not unnecessarily injuring or taking anyone's lives accidentally.

01:33:54

I think we can argue that from what we see of the American public, that's what they do.

01:34:03

They are a responsible group by and large, and in the case of this particular individual, he was an amazing shot.

01:34:12

He shot at the dirt bag in an opening between the guy's body armor on the upper torso and below that while he was on the run.

01:34:25

That's an amazing accomplishment, and he knew exactly what he was doing, and he did it, and he stopped what otherwise could have been even a greater tragedy.

01:34:36

And the only thing I would point out is that the one thing that I find so sad is that apparently nobody else in the church actually had a gun, certainly nobody else in the church shot back.

01:34:52

And so the dirt bag had a situation where he was equivalent to shooting fish in a barrel.

01:34:58

That's unacceptable. I think if we really believe in protecting innocent life, that it's a gift of God, then we should not disrespect it by saying, oh well,

01:35:08

I wouldn't shoot at a bad guy. Yes, it actually is kind of surprising that in Texas, I mean, maybe it's just because I'm not from the

01:35:17

South, I have this perhaps stereotypical idea of Southerners all carrying guns.

01:35:23

In fact, where I live now in Pennsylvania, it's very commonplace to see people carrying concealed weapons and, you know, going...

01:35:33

If you were in New York, where I'm from, especially Long Island, New York, and you were to walk into the 7 -Eleven and you would see somebody bend over and you would see a 9mm sticking out of the back of their pants, you would be in perhaps a little bit of a panic, if not more than that.

01:35:48

But Pennsylvania, that's just ordinary. But I'm surprised that there wasn't any that we know of gun -carrying congregants who did anything in that congregation.

01:35:59

I hope that everyone listening will pay attention to this and see if there isn't a lesson for each and every one of us to assume that we're going to, oh, a place of worship.

01:36:13

We shouldn't have guns in a place like that. Really? Who determines that it's such a sacrosanct place?

01:36:21

We may protest that guns don't belong there, but the bad guy is going to say, oh, you really believe that?

01:36:29

Thank you. Yeah, right. And one thing that people fail to remember when they view it being unbiblically harsh to even bring a perpetrator who has the intentions to do serious bodily harm or kill others, to bring that person to the end of their earthly existence, to put it mildly, when they think that is somehow unchristian or harsh or mean or cruel, they are also forgetting that this was a prevention of that person or people murdering or causing serious injury to other people in other areas or ongoing rampages or sprees of killing and hurting others.

01:37:23

And are they also, in addition to your point, implicitly saying that there is no hell because God wouldn't punish evildoers with eternal torment?

01:37:35

If they were going to be consistent. I hope they're not saying that, but that would be an implication of that kind of argument, and I think they need to step back and ask themselves, is that really where I want to go?

01:37:49

We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, do you think that churches in some ways, either subtly or not subtly at all, advertise the fact that there are armed congregants or parishioners in those church buildings?

01:38:07

Well, it's interesting that we can talk about advertising indeed.

01:38:14

It's not totally impossible to find places, including churches, that say no guns.

01:38:21

Well, that's a form of advertising. And you're saying bad advertising.

01:38:28

We can certainly consider what kind of advertising, but it's advertising. And it seems that we ought to think about the message that we're sending.

01:38:38

I frankly like the sign that I've seen posted outside a school in a county in Texas, small county that had one elementary school and one secondary school, and it said that the teachers were armed, and it's up to you to figure out which one.

01:39:00

Yeah, right. Let's see, we do have

01:39:07

Christian from Suffolk County, New York, who asks,

01:39:15

I heard you bring this up before on your program. If you could repeat it, I think it may be helpful.

01:39:21

I am as confused as you are by the fact that some of our very dear brethren in Christ who agree with us nearly identically in regard to our theology from the

01:39:32

UK are very opposed to the American mindset of the

01:39:38

Second Amendment and those who are passionate about gun ownership. Can you explain this phenomenon and also give a response to it?

01:39:49

I think that's very good. Yeah, we have brought that up, Larry. And if you could keep in mind that I do have men of God who

01:39:55

I consider my modern -day heroes theologically from the UK, so don't be too harsh on them.

01:40:01

Well, no, I think in part, because I've seen this myself, I had interviewed a wonderful conservative lady who'd written a book, an excellent book, on Londonistan, and it was dealing with the

01:40:15

Muslimification, if that's a word, of London, a city that now has a

01:40:22

Muslim mayor. We were having a very productive discussion, and she was explaining the problems that she saw that were inherent in the imperialistic view, the supremacist views of Islam and the

01:40:42

Koran. And then I mentioned that, well, you know, it's a shame that you all in England have essentially disarmed yourself and you don't have the ability to use firearms and self -defense against situations like this.

01:40:59

I think that this was a reference to a British body that had been knifed to death. He was unarmed and unable to defend himself when two or three knife -wielding

01:41:09

Muslims attacked him. Well, she about lost it at that point. Oh, I should have remembered!

01:41:15

I was talking with the guy from Commodores of America! And that just almost ended the interview, because she was kind of derailed at that point.

01:41:26

And so here you have a wonderful, sensible lady who sees so many of the problems, and yet when she came to deal with individual self -defense with a firearm, it just blew her mind apart.

01:41:41

So I'm not sure I have a...I mean, I can argue from history,

01:41:47

I can argue from the facts of armed self -defense saving so many lives two million times a year.

01:41:54

The federal government estimates Americans use a gun in self -defense. All of that just seems to be to no avail when you're dealing with an emotion rather than a logical argument.

01:42:07

So if we're having to use logic against an emotional argument, we're not likely to prevail.

01:42:13

I wish I had a simple answer to that, but at least I can identify what I think we're dealing with.

01:42:20

Do you think it's a lot of the attitude of our brothers and sisters in Christ in the UK, let alone the general population, whether they're

01:42:28

Christians or not, who would be opposed to our understanding of the Second Amendment for us here as citizens of the

01:42:36

United States, that a lot of it has to do with their unfamiliarity with what it's like to live in a free republic and so on, that they have a higher view of their royal government, a nostalgic view than perhaps we as American citizens would have toward our authorities?

01:42:57

I think that is what we're dealing with. That America, after all, was born as an armed response to armed aggression.

01:43:07

Now, I know that the British may want to dispute that, but the fact is the patriots at Lexington Green were fired upon by an enormously superior

01:43:18

British force. And while it didn't end well for those chaps on Lexington Green, that was the match that lit the fuse that blew up the

01:43:28

British empire in colonial America. And that is how the United States came into existence.

01:43:36

Free people with guns defending themselves against a despotic government.

01:43:43

And that's something that's in our DNA. I understand that the British have a very different tradition.

01:43:50

They've disarmed themselves for years and years and years and years. And if that's the way they want to live and die,

01:43:58

I'm not going to tell them that I'm superior to them, but don't have them do the same thing to us.

01:44:06

Yeah, it is one thing to state your own personal preferences and convictions on a divisive issue like this and an issue that has hinged on it, life and death.

01:44:22

It's one thing to declare and defend your own positions about your own life, your own place of dwelling, whether you're a citizen of a foreign country or subject in a foreign country, or whether you are a citizen here in some city and state of the

01:44:44

United States. But when you really aggressively try to rob your brother in Christ or your fellow citizen of his desire to protect himself and those he cherishes through the use of firearms, that's when you're really dwelling into a different area, isn't it?

01:45:06

Yeah, I think to a certain extent those that take an opposite position of ours are convinced that it's somehow not effective to use a firearm in self -defense, when the data that we have that, again, our federal government has collected indicates that it makes a very big difference.

01:45:28

We don't find a rampant gang problem, murder problem in a place like Wyoming or Arkansas or a number of other states where guns are readily available.

01:45:44

People can legally carry them in 15 of our states without a permit to carry concealed being required at all.

01:45:52

You go to Chicago, you got to crawl over glass to get some bureaucrat that works for you to allow you, his boss, to carry a gun to protect yourself.

01:46:03

And I don't think it works very well in Chicago. They're the worst in the country as far as murder rate per jurisdiction, per 100 ,000.

01:46:14

And so whether you want to look at how it works in terms of self -defense or the basic idea that the sovereign inherently possesses the means to enforce his sovereignty, we the people are supposed to be the sovereign in our system of government in the

01:46:34

United States. And to say that the sovereign should be disarmed is to say that it's no longer the sovereign.

01:46:41

Right. And let's see, we have a listener in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

01:46:53

Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says, do you have a list of practical suggestions of how churches can better prevent the kind of thing that occurred in Sutherland Springs, Texas?

01:47:11

Well, perhaps the easiest thing, although not the cheapest, would be to hire an armed guard or two.

01:47:19

But a number of churches are increasingly having conversations with the members of the church.

01:47:29

And when there is enough interest, determining that they're going to know who has a concealed carry permit and have some kind of plan of action worked out so that if trouble starts, it's not just a shoot -em -up chaotic situation, but there'd actually be a plan of response.

01:47:54

And that's increasingly being found in churches across the country.

01:47:59

And information for that purpose is available online. So I would strongly encourage people who think that the gift of life that comes from God should be protected, then pursue this avenue, please.

01:48:17

Make it so that if the bad guy thinks that he has a right to come in and shoot the place up, that that may be the last bad decision he makes in this life.

01:48:28

And let's see, we have a listener in Bangor, Maine, John.

01:48:38

John in Bangor, Maine says, how do we defend these views that we are proclaiming today without coming off like we are know -it -alls or haughty or somehow think that we are superior to those who disagree?

01:48:56

How do we have a Christ -like conversation with those who disagree without it turning into a nasty argument filled with ad hominem remarks?

01:49:07

Well, I would urge taking a look at what we've got on our website, what the

01:49:13

Bible says about gun control. It deals with biblical, scriptural teaching on the defense of innocent life using lethal force.

01:49:26

And it really has nothing to do with a sense of superiority. If anything, it's a recognition that each and every one of us is a son of Adam, and to assume that nothing bad will ever happen is to say that we know better than what

01:49:46

Scripture teaches. So I would say that if there's any arrogance, if there's any assumption of superiority, it may well be found on the part of those who assume that their proclamation of pacifism is somehow superior to my announcement that I understand this is a fallen world and I'm going to do what

01:50:09

I can to protect innocent life. Let's see, we have an anonymous listener who asks,

01:50:19

Do you think that this country has any hope for really regaining the full benefits of the

01:50:27

Second Amendment, or are we doomed to become exceedingly and gradually more totalitarian in this government that we have over us?

01:50:42

Well, I think the jury is still out, certainly. There are areas of the country where they've apparently just completely abandoned the notions of the

01:50:52

Constitution and gone over to the idea that the government is responsible for the protection of life and nobody else should have a role in it.

01:51:03

The government is responsible for all the areas of our life, really, and that we should only do what the government tells us to do.

01:51:11

And then there's the rest of the country where the battle is really still on, and I think we can still prevail in many other parts of the country.

01:51:20

I think increasingly there seems to be a growing awareness that we're in a battle and that the lines have been drawn.

01:51:29

And there are some places, be it Chicago or San Francisco, where it's probably going to be a pretty uphill fight to regain notions of freedom.

01:51:38

But then there's a lot of other places in the country where I think increasingly people are coming to the idea that freedom is a good thing, it's worth defending, and the protection of life by each and every individual to the extent that he or she can is a good thing.

01:51:59

Well, I would like you to have, before I go to any more listener questions, I'd like you to have about five minutes of uninterrupted time where you could really summarize what you believe is most important to have etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we run out of time.

01:52:15

Well, I think at the end of the day what we're talking about is the protection of innocent life, the protection of life which is a gift of God.

01:52:25

The pro -life movement has certainly understood that well and has done yeoman work to defend innocent life from the knife of the butcher at the abortion clinic.

01:52:38

But apparently there's a disconnect among some of our brothers where maybe we managed to get you born but then, well, you're not involved any longer, if you ever were, in the defense of life and you're just to be a good citizen and leave everything to the hands of the government.

01:53:00

If we've learned anything from the previous administration of Barack Obama, we should realize that there are people like Lois Lerner.

01:53:09

The only reason she's not in jail is because we have a feckless attorney general who has said that he won't prosecute her.

01:53:16

But from everything we know, she regularly and often broke the law and used her political power against the political opponents of the president at the time,

01:53:28

Barack Obama. So that just tells us that the government can go off the rails.

01:53:36

Keep in mind that there was a dramatic time in our history in the 1940s after the

01:53:42

Second World War. Athens, Tennessee had been taken over by some very corrupt politicians.

01:53:48

They literally stole the election. One election day,

01:53:54

I believe it was 1947, the people of the town kind of figured that's what might happen.

01:54:00

And a militia, as it were, formed and rode into town on pickup trucks and automobiles, all bristling with rifles.

01:54:09

There was a brief shootout at the police station because the police had taken the ballot boxes to the police station.

01:54:18

They had to abandon them. And a true count was then accomplished. And it turned out that corruptocrats were voted out of office.

01:54:26

But that never would have happened had the people not been able to use the

01:54:31

Second Amendment in defense of a free republic. Do you think that a lot of the case that those of us who believe firmly and passionately in the

01:54:47

Second Amendment is based on something that may not be itself a biblical citation, but does have,

01:54:58

I think, biblical support, the words of Lord Acton that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, that it is a very dangerous thing to have a minority of people who are considered an elite source of power, of authority over the common citizens, who have power over all of the possession and use of firearms?

01:55:29

That is a very dangerous blueprint for the future of any country and nation, isn't it?

01:55:35

It certainly is. Countries that are ruled that way are called Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia.

01:55:41

Admittedly, there are countries like England, where they have this thing about guns, but even the police there typically are not armed.

01:55:51

Frankly, I don't like the way the British assumption about government operates, because that country assumes that the government knows best, and it's quite overbearing.

01:56:06

We're a different country. We were born because, basically, the clergy of colonial

01:56:14

New England preached rebellion against British tyranny, and many of those pastors rode off to battle with the men of their church, who formed militia units and went to fight under George Washington as part of his army.

01:56:33

That's a tradition which we don't hear much about, but if you read the book by an

01:56:41

Oklahoma legislator and pastor, Bring Back the Black Robed Regiment, you'll see that this was a very common doctrine taught up and down New England, up and down the

01:56:54

American colonies. Well, we are out of time now, and I want to make sure that our listeners have all of the contact information available for you.

01:57:06

First of all, the Gun Owners of America website is gunowners .org.

01:57:11

Gunowners .org. Do you have any other contact information that you could give? No, that's going to do it.

01:57:17

We would love for people to go there and get signed up for our free email alerts. I think they'll find it very informative and useful.

01:57:26

And I would obviously urge everyone listening to pray for the families of the victims at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and perhaps even contact churches local to that area to find out how you can personally reach out with the love of Jesus Christ to members there.

01:57:51

The actual pastor and church there might be overwhelmed right now, and certainly are, with the media and others trying to contact them, so that might not be wise or possible right now.

01:58:03

It will be down the road very wise, I think, to contact that pastor and those elders and deacons and the congregants.

01:58:10

But perhaps pray for opportunities that might be opened up by local churches who are aware of that congregation.

01:58:18

And please keep those people who are mourning and grieving the loss of loved ones in your prayers.

01:58:25

I want to thank you so much, Larry, for a very late notice coming on the program today, and we look forward to your return to Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio.

01:58:33

Well, thanks so much. Good to be with you. And you'll be getting an mp3 of the program very soon, so thank you very much for being on the program.

01:58:40

I want to thank everybody who listened today, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater