COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—A proposal allowing security guards to carry semiautomatic weapons in Colorado Springs is getting increased attention after a volunteer church guard shot a gunman during a fatal shooting rampage.
The current ordinance limits security guards to revolvers. The City Council is expected to consider an ordinance next month that would be expanded to include semiautomatics.
Some semiautomatic handguns are capable of carrying more cartridges than revolvers, and some people find semiautomatics easier to reload.
The proposal has been in the works for months but gained new relevance after a member of New Life Church’s volunteer security detail shot and wounded a gunman on Sunday. The gunman, Matthew Murray, 24, of Englewood, then shot and killed himself.
Murray had killed two people at New Life, 12 hours after he killed two others at Youth With a Mission, a missionary school in the Denver suburb of Arvada.
The security guard, Jeanne Assam, shot Murray with a Beretta 9mm semiautomatic handgun, authorities said. Assam was licensed to carry a gun, but it wasn’t immediately known whether she was exempt from the restriction on semiautomatics. Colorado Springs police did not immediately return a call Wednesday.
Michael Briggs, president of Konquest Security in Colorado Springs, said the New Life shootings argue for allowing security guards to be more heavily armed.
“Here’s a guy who went into a church with enough ammo to kill half the people in it,” Briggs said. “If they continue to knock us down to carrying nothing but a six-shooter,” a guard’s ability to diffuse dangerous situations is diminished.”
