Elmo Fudpucker

Our church runs around 400 Sunday morning, and we have about 40 guys total on rotating teams so we are on security every other week. About 30 of us on the teams have our carry permits. Our church has Brotherhood Mutual Insurance, which fully insures security team members for liability, medical, legal, etc with a $1 million cap (if my memory serves me right). It is very good coverage. The insurance requires permits for anyone carrying on security for them to be covered. We had a rep from the insurance come out about 10 months ago and fill us in on all that the insurance covers and it is outstanding. Our church has had cameras installed that cover every entrance/exit and most of our campus. We usually have one team person doing nothing but watching cameras, one on each main entrance, one roving the parking lot via golf cart, and one in the auditorium all with radios. We also have a designated rapid response team. In case of medical emergency, we are blessed to have a number of nurses/medical people that attend our church. We also make sure to lock our main entrance doors usually about 5 mins after our services start and just let people in who are running late. The guy who is leading our security team is really working to increasingly get us better organized. I think he's doing a great job so far. He shoots monthly with a few others in a local amateur competitive event. Another guy in our church has made available a range he has on his property for anyone on the team that wants to go through a basic modified FBI qualification course just to evaluate ourselves. He's working on trying to get us more organized training, but there isn't much available in our area. We have a quarterly meeting to discuss any security issues. I am glad that our guys seem to all take security seriously, and our church is appreciative of it. Of course we have people with all different levels of firearm proficiency. I am retired Army so firearm handling, shooting, and safety are pretty second nature for me. Its neat to hear what other churches are doing.

Back when I took the mandatory 8 hr training to get my permit, the cop who taught it said the open carry right is more so that you don't have to deal with getting in trouble for having your gun seen when holstering, etc. than it is about openly carrying. That aspect makes sense. For all the reasons that have been aptly stated above I agree that it's just a bad idea to open carry in public.

To me over-ruling federal unconstitutional over reach is a very valid concept. Ever since the Civil War the Federal government has been continuously gobbling up power and stomping all over states rights. We really have lost sight of how weak the federal govt was before the Civil War. It is this abuse of federal power that has allowed socialism to gain such a foothold as it now does, and is why our national deficit is through the roof. Why should the federal govt be able to pass laws and make mandates if they are unconstitutional?

I think that is a balanced approach to the issue. Enjoy our freedoms but we don't have to be in people's face about it either. Unfortunately where I live the houses are simply spaced too close to do any shooting. Not a good idea to be in the yard shooting when your yard is only 1/2 acre. Makes cutting the grass easier though.

Nice. We'll done.

29 yrs married and still happily. We're not big TV watchers per se, but on the weekends my wife will chill out and watch Hallmark and Great American Family movies, most of which I can't stand. She hates the action stuff I like to watch. So we usually end up watching different things in two different rooms when we do. I'll sometimes break down and watch something with her she is watching just to spend time with her. She'll sometimes do things with me she doesn't really care to do. That's called relationship. When it comes to vacations, fortunately we both mostly like doing the same things. We both don't like the beach and would much rather be in a cabin in Gatlinburg or the like.

I had a large pine tree about 2' in diameter about 90ft taken down, and hauled off about a year ago for $1500 (Chattanooga). It had to be taken down in pieces because it had power lines and the house on 3 sides.

Can you shoot me a pm? I'm interested in you sig. I haven't been on this forum for quite a while and for whatever reason my account got deleted at some point so I just had to create a new account. I'm also in Chattanooga, East Brainerd to be specific. Thx