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I'm not going to jump into the deep end on this but we also have to understand that we are churches, places that welcome the hurt, the confused, the lost. It is a fine line we walk trying to be welcoming and trying to be safe. There is no doubt that things could have been done differently but that is the luxury we have being Monday morning QBs. If I had been in the same situation, as head of our safety team, I can't honestly say I would have done things any differently. Maybe I would have but I don't know all the details. I do know that as I watched the video it was easy to put myself in any of the members roles. The auditorium looks very much like ours. Same layout, same pews, we even had the orange upholstery for a while. I often help serve communion from the back corner. I have sat on the back pew watching a POI. I have stood across the way scanning for threats. So it is not hard for me to see myself following the same procedure.

Will we do things differently now, absolutely, but we also have to be very discerning that we don't get in the way of our true responsibility, trying to seek and save the lost. I pray that if I turn someone away from our doors in error that the Lord pricks their heart so they will still search for Him and, secondly, that He forgives me as I try, in my frail human wisdom, to do the best I can fulfilling my ministry.

I found another image of the auditorium from the position the pastor was sitting in (second pew from front). Using people on the back wall for a scale it looks to be 40-45'ish. There is still some perspective to deal with but I think the 15 yard mark is pretty close.

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Photo by Bobby Ross Jr. found @ ChristianChronicle.com

I have an acquaintance at WFCC and I can ask him. It may come out before I get word back from him.

He was in the auditorium during the attack so I want to respect his healing and his energy as he helps the congregation heal.

https://apnews.com/856bfff9dc582b934ff8f60c7cb3af28

In 2012, a district judge in Oklahoma ruled him mentally incompetent to stand trial and ordered him committed to a psychiatric facility for treatment.

Kinnunen was charged with felony assault and battery with a dangerous weapon after he attacked the owner of a Chickasha, Oklahoma, doughnut shop in 2011, court records state. He was separately charged with arson that year after allegedly starting a fire in a cotton field by tying tampons soaked in lamp oil to the crop.

A forensic psychologist who examined Kinnunen in 2012 for both cases wrote that “Kinnunen currently evidences signs that are consistent with a substantial mental illness and that meet the inpatient criteria of a ‘person requiring treatment.’”

Kinnunen got “more and more” into drugs and “it messed with his head” during their marriage, Angela Holloway, whose divorce from him was finalized in 2011, told the AP.

She said that she doesn’t know whether Kinnunen was ever diagnosed with a mental illness and that she wasn’t sure whether he could legally have guns, but that he consistently did.

“I don’t know how he got them; I just know that he did have them,” she said.

In 2016, Kinnunen was arrested in New Jersey and charged with unlawful possession of a firearm. He eventually pleaded guilty to the lesser crime of criminal trespass, court records show. In Texas, he was charged with aggravated assault in 2008 but pleaded down to misdemeanor deadly conduct.

dlh wrote: ↑Mon Dec 30, 2019 5:07 pm I only heard three shots. The first two from the gunman who killed the two innocents next to him then the third and final shot from the good guy Mr. Wilson killing the bad guy.
I practice regularly at the distance between Mr. Wilson and the bad guy with a steel target and usually manage about 8 hits out of ten shots. Mr. Wilson's marksmanship was amazing under the circumstances.
I also wonder about Mr. Wilson's one-shot in that incident. I would have been inclined to fire multiple rapid shots at the suspect. Perhaps there may have been people in the way or he trusted his marksmanship enough to fire just once.

There was a forth shot (third by the BG) at the same moment that Mr. Wilson took his shot. If you watch the video carefully you can see the shotgun muzzle flash. It apparently went into the ceiling or over the heads of the congregation.