Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection

At the beginning of this month, February 2016, the FBI arrested a self-radicalized Muslim, Khalil Abu Ryyan, 21, who told an undercover agent that he was planning on going into a Christian church in the Detroit area and killing as many people as he could because they "were in large numbers and unarmed." He said that he wanted to carry out this self-initiated Jihad (Holy War) in support for Islamic State. At the time he was stopped by the police he had a handgun in his possession.

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The deadly attacks against Christians have not only been in Syria, Iraq, Somolia, Kenya, and other countries with Christian minorities, but attacks against Christians have even been happening in my own country - the United States of America.  There have been many shootings in churches over the years, and now they are becoming as common as school shootings.

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Many churches around the country see the trend and are following the adviced of Jesus himself when he told his disciples, knowing that he was going to leave them until his Second Coming, "And if you don't have a sword, sell your coat and buy one." Luke 22:36 The sword he was referring to was not a sword of war, like the Roman gladius carried at the time for national defense, but a small sword for self-defense. The Bible makes it clear that there is a time for self-defense, and mentally disturbed people or terrorists intent on massacring worshipers is a valid time to use force. As such several churches over the years have come to me for training. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to teach another armed church security team out on a private firearms range in sunny Southern California. It was a good training, but hot. Not only was the range "hot," and the firing line "hot" (meaning weapons are being handled), but the temperature was hot - 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29.5 Celsius). Although it was the middle of winter, it was like training in the summer. 

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I had a good group of men, who were already all excellent shooters, but I had many new things to teach them, and I helped to improve their groups as well (a group is where all the bullets hit on the target). After going over some essentials, I then went into a lot of movement drills, a counterterrorist drill I learned while being a US Air Marshal, the Israeli Run & Stomp, contact shots, and finishing up with the Jim Wagne Threshold Peek when one has to go into a room by themself to check of the bad guy. For the last 30 minutes of training it was "open range," which means that students could work on the techniques that they wanted to, and some of the students switched over to assault rifles and shot small targets at 300 meters.

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I have no doubt that if an active shooter enters their church that they will return bullets and not just be sitting ducks. Unfortunately, the world is getting more violent every year and there is a need to have armed undercover security teams at every service. Jewish synagogues have been doing this for years in America.