Some comments on your post.
First, No need to apologize for a long post when it makes for interesting reading.
Having the Pastor talk to the Congregation seems like a great idea for 2 reasons, first off every one is in the loop if some type of emergency should occur, you don't wind up with 10 people trying to handle the situation, (Medical or Meteorological as well as Maniac ) while 290 others run around like headless chickens. Everyone will know there is a plan in place, I don't know exactly what it is, and have no active part in it, so I will just get the heck out of the way of the people who DO.
Secondly, Every Church has Fire extinguishers, Every member of the Congregation has a spare tire (if they drive ) It is foolish to not prepare for other possibilities as well.
And to those who say defensive fire arms have no place in a house of worship I will point out that the crenelations around the roof line of Catholic Churches may simply be a design feature today, but originally they were meant as fighting positions for archers defending the Sanctuary.
Also in the Colonial period men were required to bring their rifles to church since that was where the they were checked for militia duty . (Not to mention that up here any way, we still had an Indian problem that could make the journey to church quite dangerous )
But then, there are still people who believe the earth is flat
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Thanks for that. We had many long discussions on how to impart the needed info to the congregation without causing too much alarm or letting everyone know we have armed security. You are exactly right we had lots of concern with people that were not in the safety team that may try to "help" and cause more harm than good. Some other concerns is if in the basement we have an active shooter and our assigned team makes entry to the basement we have to secure the entry/exit points to the basement by our team members assigned to each point to not only keep the shooter from coming up, but keeping church members from going down to get there kids. That could be a nightmare. Also, we have to keep control of the members exiting in an orderly way and kept them out of the way of the responding LEO. The congregation knows we have team members with the youth at all times.
That is so true of the crenellation and the Colonial period. How soon we forget.