When two nihilistic idjits recently chose to attack San Diego's largest mosque, an armed security guard on the campus saved numerous lives by engaging the attackers and keeping them away from classrooms and other populated areas of the building, even though it cost him his own life.
The bravery displayed by Amin Abdullah should be recognized. A recent report by USA Today, though, misses the bigger picture by focusing on security guards and their task of keeping the locations where they work as safe as possible, while ignoring the role that armed citizens should play in being able to protect themselves.
On average, they make $18 an hour. Many are required to provide their own body armor. And if a gunman bursts through the door of a church, Walmart or government office, they’re relied on to confront intruders hell-bent on wreaking deadly consequences.
That’s the unspoken job description for a private security guard in the United States.
The nation’s more than 1.2 million private security personnel are nearly twice the country’s estimated 700,000 police officers but often melt into the scenery as people go about their daily lives. As uniformed fixtures at banks, hospitals, schools, retail stores, apartment complexes and municipal buildings, their sometimes vague or questionable presence has made some of them objects of ridicule, as rendered in the 2009 film “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”
Yet in a culture plagued by mass shootings, security guards work the front lines with little fanfare, charged with tackling what the job can demand in a worst-case scenario. On May 18, a security guard was among three people killed at the Islamic Center of San Diego, praised by police for his actions in preventing what could have been a greater tragedy.
Honestly, most people work their jobs with little fanfare, at least until something exceptional happens. Police officers and firefighters aren't generally praised just for showing up to work, are they?
Still, I think I get what the author is saying here. We tend to hold police, firefighters, teachers, doctors, nurses, and other professions in at least somewhat high regard. Security officers, not so much. A lot of folks see them as wannabe cops who couldn't hack the police academy if they tried or tactical bros who just want to carry a gun on the job, without ever thinking about what they're paid to do if confronted by someone armed and eager to carry out mass murder.
With police retention and recruitment perennial issues for law enforcement, businesses and municipalities such as Portland, Oregon, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, are turning to private security to fill the gap, according to a study by researchers at Duke University and the University of Chicago.
Reports suggest the presence of security guards in public spaces may deter crime, but most don’t carry weapons and lack a police officer’s authority to issue citations or make arrests. Their average wage is roughly half of that of police officers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, often without the accompanying pensions and legal protections.
They don't have the same pensions and legal protections of police officers because they're not police officers. Still, I don't have an issue with security guards wanting more money and benefits.
What I do have a problem with, though, is the idea that I should place my safety and security in the hands of an unarmed person making $18 an hour. I don't even like the idea of leaving it up to someone making two or three times that much who is able to carry a gun on the job. The courts have already concluded that law enforcement has no duty to protect me as an individual, and the same is definitely true for paid security guards.
The answer to this is simple: let us protect ourselves. If a private school wants to hire armed security, great. But they should also have the option to have armed staff or volunteers in place. The same goes for churches, daycares, and any other business.
Even worse than a location protected by nothing more than a private security guard are those places protected by nothing more than a "no guns allowed" sign. A security guard may or may not choose to run towards the danger if necessary, but signage can't do a single thing but hang on the wall as individuals with murderous intent stroll on by.
None of this is meant as an attack on or attempt to denigrate those who work in security, armed or unarmed. I appreciate them, and there are multiple examples of heroic efforts on the part of security guards featured in the USA Today story. If I'm ever in a "gun-free zone" that's targeted by a lunatic looking for his fifteen minutes of infamy, I hope that there'll be a courageous security guard there who's willing to step up and face the danger. I just don't want to have to depend on that possibility. I'd much rather be able to protect myself and my loved ones, and I'm willing to do it for free.
