We get questions from readers and one particularly insightful query came in about the CrossPointe Community Church attack, peripherally reported on here. The question had to do with distance of engagement and use of cover by church security assets. Dealing with responding police units and steps to protect the congregation during movement away from the threat were other points of interest. 

All good questions. First, if you rely on news reports (we do; I asked Stephen Wenger and Tom Givens if they had inside information – no), it’s going to be wrong. This is sometimes through (1) ineffective communication and word use, or (2) laziness of reporting, or (3) witnesses acting as “blind men describing the elephant.”

While we can’t address the distance of engagement or use of cover (hint: for best results, control distance and make the best use of cover/concealment you can, consistent with the situation), we can consider what it looks like to greet responding units.

First, a specific team member handles communication with 911; that’s a named person, with a contingent in case we lose the communicator (or that person isn’t present on “that day”). That person stays on the line with the 911 operator, giving specific information as to number and descriptions of attacker(s), location on the property, number and description of defenders (this will all be messed up in transmission to responding assets; it’s the way it goes), and some estimate of casualties. 

Then, appoint someone to actually make contact with responding units. Remember to have a successor named, just in case. 

Things happen. 

This person will be described to 911, will go out, hands in plain view, and will follow police instructions – how are they to know this is a church representative otherwise?

As to movement of a group to safety, there’s a lot to cover there. Having someone skilled in setting up church security do a site survey would be very helpful. Perhaps initiating outreach with local police assets before they’re needed would help. And the “community services” part of the agency may help with a site survey.

You don’t know until you ask. 

The seemingly never-ending saga of the SIG P320 and variants continues unabated. This time, it’s a “Freedom of Information” response on the report of a Michigan State Police case that MSP submitted to FBI Ballistics, along with the holster worn, to determine what happened. 

Prominent in the report, unmentioned by subsequent takes in outdoors media and social media, is the set of keys worn on the belt, along with the space in the holster necessary to allow a pistol mounted light (a dubious bit of gear for most users in most situations), a nick on the trigger guard corresponding to the keys having entered the holster --  and more. 

Does that mean it’s a holster issue, a gun light issue or that the “magic self-firing gun” did its thing? 

People hate “inconclusive.” They want certainty. They want fulfillment of their assumptions, “conspiracy theories,” whatever.

It was the same with JFK files (“everyone knows it was (fill in the blank), not some dweebish loser who even the Soviets saw as a loose cannon!”). 

As Outdoor Life points out, in excellent reporting by John Snow, the (redacted) FBI report describes tests that required cutting a viewing window in the slide to see what happens to the striker safety spring in recoil – and that part of the slide holds the spring in place … we don’t need F. Lee Bailey to see the potential issue here.

Next, they do a test that requires putting torque pressure on the assembled slide and frame in a way that’s not well described, leading us to conclude it was analogous to trying to disassemble a loaded gun. 

That’s not helpful. 

Still, something is happening with those guns – not others – in holsters. 

Meanwhile, a memo from an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director was leaked online, indicating that the P320 was “out” at that agency and that they would be replaced with pistols from GLOCK. 

That, to my knowledge, has not been confirmed at the time this is written.   

Regardless, the so-called “uncommanded discharge” situation has happened – regardless of cause—and the stories continue unabated. If, as the gun’s maker, you say “the users are the problem,” it’s still your problem. I may be dense (I’ve been told I am) but I’m not seeing a good way out of this for the manufacturer. This wouldn’t have been happening with the P250 (or any one of a number of guns made by SIG). 

And, with the flak they’re getting, it shows SIG is “over the target” as far as agency adoptions and sales. People generally don’t make an effort to attack you unless you’re at the top of the pile.

Or so it seems.

— Rich Grassi