School Security, Church Security and Active Shooter Response Part 2: Armed Guard Employment

The last article on school and church defense focused on the importance of integrating three elements into a cohesive plan of action: On-site armed guards, auxiliary security/support personnel and local law enforcement. In this second part of the 4-part article, we will focus on seven suggestions for employing armed guards for school defense and how to integrate those guards into a larger plan/drill for responding to a deadly attack.

While the more guards a school can have the better, even just a single armed guard on campus can greatly reduce the threat. Many schools have started to employ armed guards, however, the approach we suggest is not the conventional model for armed security. We think the following seven suggestions might offer some new perspectives on how to make armed security more efficient and effective. Finally, while this article refers to “school security,” the same principles can apply to both schools and churches.

The guard should be heavily armed – From our perspective, the armed guard should not be a traditional armed guard with a pistol. Recent attackers have employed high-powered automatic weapons. The guard should therefore look more like a “single-person assault team” than a traditional guard. The guard should wear body armor, carry a weapon with high magazine capacity, extra magazines and the appropriate optics to engage targets at range. Many seem to think it is inevitable that security guards will be outgunned in a fight. The easy solution to this problem is simply to bring a different gun to the fight.

The guard should stage in a secure/hidden location –The guard should ideally not be visible and instead remain on standby in a secure location. Not only will this prevent attackers from trying to ambush the guard first, but it will solve the problem of many schools objecting to having a scary-looking, heavily-armed guard visible on campus. While doing so might provide a deterrent, it might also scare students and inadvertently accomplish the core terrorist objective of causing fear and paranoia in society and changing our way of life. There are some countries where people live in constant fear and tanks patrol the streets. We believe that America should avoid going down that path if possible. If we can provide a “low-visibility” security solution, we believe that is preferable. A deterrent effect can be accomplished using signs, warnings and information campaigns announcing the presence of armed guards on campus.

The guard should be centrally located – A deadly attacker will probably not initiate the attack at the entrance of the school but closer to the center where the majority of students are located. Therefore, while it is good to have an access control point, the heavily armed guard should be more centrally located to be able to respond to an attack anywhere on the campus. A school could also establish multiple staging areas to put the guard closer to the highest risk areas depending on the time of day. For example, during lunch hours the guard to stage right next to the cafeteria.

The guard should be highly-trained as an assaulter – Because threats used to be less lethal, traditional guard training generally doesn’t focus enough on the skills required to rapidly find, fix and finish a hostile, heavily armed and rapidly moving threat. A modern guard’s training should include skills that are traditionally reserved for military and tactical units including close quarters battle, long-range marksmanship, barricade shooting and combat casualty care. There are a large number of military and law enforcement veterans who already have experience and training in these skills. Furthermore, veteran law enforcement and military personnel who have experienced combat will have a degree of “stress inoculation” to reduce the chances that they will freeze or panic in an emergency.

The guard should stage, ammunition, medical supplies and other equipment in secure, hidden locations around the school – It is impossible to know the scale or duration of the next catastrophic attack or predict how long an engagement will last. Therefore, there should be secure caches of ammunition and critical supplies spread across the campus. While ammunition should remain hidden and securely locked, the medical supplies can be visible and marked. This will also allow the armed guard(s) to carry a lighter combat load, giving them greater mobility and allowing them to get to the fight faster. It might also help to stage other, heavy, tactical equipment such as ballistic shields around the campus as well that the guards can use in an emergency.

The guard should be incorporated into the deadly attack drill – The school must have a unique alert system to trigger an evacuation and to activate the armed guard. The system should ideally help identify the location of the shooters and rapidly direct the guard to neutralize the threat while the students/staff evacuate along pre-designated movement corridors. Ideally, these corridors should be chosen to provide covered and concealed escape routes. There also need to be established recognition signals to ensure the students/staff know who the guard is and vice-versa. While Special Tactics has methods to accomplish these objectives, we do not want to go into too much detail here since specific procedures work better if they are not accessible by potential threats. Special Tactics will provide free consulting services for any school/church that wishes to know more.

The drill should look more like a combat scenario than a fire drill – Ideally, the deadly attack drill should include a role player simulating the deadly attacker and the guard will have to locate and engage the threat while others evacuate. It is possible to execute this drill as a dry-fire drill, but it is also possible to use training ammunition or laser technology for the simulated engagement to facilitate better preparation. The drill should include simulated casualties, casualty evacuation and emergency medical treatment.

These seven recommendations only scratch the surface of the planning and thought needed to achieve maximum effectiveness when employing on-site armed guards to protect our schools and churches. We realize that the approach advocated in this article is not the standard model for armed guard employment. In addition, we are not opposed to employing additional, visible armed guards at entry points in a more traditional role if resources allow. However, given the ability to have only one guard, we believe the above model will provide the greatest chances of success for averting a crisis. The next article in the 4-part series will discuss the incorporation of auxiliary security and support assets into the greater security plan.

We recently released our new “Active Threat Survival Essentials” course on our partnered learning platform the Iron Survival Network. The course features interactive video lessons using footage of real-world attacks and teaches the most critical concepts and techniques for surviving a deadly encounter. Click below to learn more.