Opinion: Armed guards necessary in today’s world

It’s getting harder to find peace on Earth.

Violent crime statistics in the United States may be down from where they were a few years ago, but people don’t feel safer. Part of the reason is that there seem to be so many more random victims, like the ones in Omaha last week; like the dozens who might have been killed Sunday at New Life Church, had it not been for the steady gun hand of a security guard.

What might have been the biggest mass murder in U.S. history was averted.

Matthew Murray reportedly had 1,000 rounds of ammunition in a backpack and was headed for the church’s huge congregation when he was shot by Jeanne Assam. Assam is part of a 12-member volunteer security squad at New Life, Pastor Brady Boyd said at a news conference Monday.

Having armed guards at New Life “might seem like a new concept to some of you, but given the events of the last 24 hours, I’m sure you understand,” Boyd said.

He said the security force has been in place for “the past few years because of the stature of the church.”

Boyd stressed that “these are not mercenaries that we have walking around,” that the volunteers all attend the church.

Nevertheless, it’s sad that such measures are necessary at a church, where everyone expects to find peace and serenity.

In a news release, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson observed that “there are no sanctuaries in today’s culture.”

Sad but true. It’s an amber-alert world.

Armed guards outside a worship service, air marshals aboard commercial flights, metal detectors in public buildings, constant cameras in shopping malls and at intersections: They all instill in us a sense of generic, pervasive danger. Sometimes it feels dangerous to cast a sidelong glance while stopped at a traffic light.

One generation grew up with the specter of a nuclear holocaust that somehow has waned. But that spectre has been replaced by a collective worry about random killers, terrorists and child abductors.

New Life Church isn’t alone. Woodmen Valley Church, First Presbyterian Church and Focus on the Family all have some sort of security guards. The Anti-Defamation League’s Web site contains “Guidelines for Hiring a Security Contractor.”

Before Sunday’s tragedy, some might have thought it a bit over the top to have armed guards at New Life Church. By Monday morning, those people awoke to what might have seemed a new, harsher world.

No. It’s the same dangerous place it was just a couple of days ago.

Contact Barry Noreen at 636-0363 or noreen@gazette.com.

He appears every other Friday on KOAA’s Comcast Channel 9 at 4 p.m.