BY JIMMY MEEKS
Before I go any further, let me clarify something. I am very PRO police. I served as a police officer for 35 years: five in Oklahoma and 30 in Texas. So don’t think that I am in any way opposed to the police.
A couple of years ago, I put 6000 miles on my car in a 3-week period, driving around the nation, stopping at police departments, speaking at roll calls, all to show my support, and provide encouragement, to the police.
But let me also clarify something else: if you find yourself in a situation where an active shooter shows up, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that the police will be there to help.
Don’t misunderstand me. They will show up (eventually). Once dispatched, they will drive like a bat out of hell to get there.
But they won’t get there in time to save the innocent. The carnage will have already occurred. They will get there just in time to tend to the wounded - while placing crime scene tape around the area.
When I look back on my career I am somewhat startled by a certain fact. I can count on one hand the number of times I was dispatched to a violent crime in progress, and arrived while it was still in progress. That rarely happened. The offender has usually fled the scene before the police arrive.
I was very frustrated by that. I wanted to catch the bad guy while he was still causing trouble, but alas, I seldom did. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I often drove Code 3 to get there - lights and siren - but still no luck.
You’re probably familiar with this statement, but it bears repeating: when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
There is a common problem in police departments across the land. It is public knowledge, but departments really don’t want you to give it too much thought. The fact is, that hundreds of departments across the United States are experiencing a shortage of officers. A job that once had great appeal - no longer does.
In New York City, a record number of officers are leaving. According to the New York Post, 2,465 police officers have filed to leave the department this year. And that’s just New York. Many of the larger cities are experiencing this same dilemma.
You need to understand the challenge this creates for you if you serve on a church safety team. Over 90 percent of the time when a violent offender comes to a church, he will complete his mission before being stopped. The police rarely stop these guys, thus, it depends on you and your team to do so.
And this is true not only for our houses of worship but also true anywhere you go.
Knowing this, I rarely leave my house without my gun. I love the police, I just know better than to count on them (in reality, there is only about one police officer per 10,000 people. And my local PD has refused to assign one of those officers to me!).
I am not in the position that the president, or celebrities are. The Secret Service guards the president, and celebrities can easily afford protective services. But me? I don’t have the means to hire such services. Thus, I have to be the protector of my family. As Colonel Grossman often says, “I am my family’s Secret Service.”
These mass shooters - killers - are not going away.
It does not matter how many laws we pass that are aimed at “gun violence.” The recent bill that made its way through Congress is a joke.
Our elected officials simply don’t understand the capacity for evil that lies in the heart of some of our citizens. And the truth is, few, if any of them, will lose sleep worrying about your safety or mine.
Let me give you an example. The city of Chicago is a very violent place. It has been called “Chiraq,” a nickname it warranted due to its murder rate and violence (i.e. - Chicago’s violence and its similarity to Iraq’s violence).
Recently, someone tossed what was believed to be an explosive device onto a movie set. This alarmed city leaders, since movies and TV shows generate a lot of money in Chicago.
So how did Chicago’s leaders respond? The police department was ordered to remove officers from some of the neighborhoods and assign them to locations where the shows are being made.
What are these killers capable of? In August of 2009, Reverend CArol Daniels was attacked insider her church in Anadarko, Oklahoma. According to the autopsy report, Daniels had been stabbed multiple times, her head nearly severed, her hair set on fire. The killers didn’t stop there. Investigators say her body was also stripped nude, doused with a cleaning solution, and in the opinion of some — posed as if on a crucifix. more
Thus, we have to take matters into our own hands.
And that explains why I choose to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights.
I am NOT a gun fanatic. I have no gun collection to show off or brag about. My primary interest is the safety and well-being of my family, friends, and fellow Americans. I am not as interested in the 2nd Amendment as I am in the Second Commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
It is LOVE for my family, and my fellow Americans, that compels me to carry a gun. 1 Corinthians 13 - the love chapter - tells me that “love…always protects.”
If your church does not have a safety team that is prepared to stop these killers, you need to consider what is actually going on: there is an absence of LOVE among your flock.
