Not asking for legal advice per se but more advice on how to proceed with an issue concerning concealed carry.


At the church I attend, I have been informed by my pastor that one active duty state policeman and one retired state policeman conceal carry by permission of the preacher and church elders. Illinois law states that conceal carry is legal on your own property or on private property with the owner's permission. In other words, concealed carry is legal now in Illinois but only with those stipulations. I did broach the idea of me carrying to our pastor and said I would be happy to sit down with him and the church elders to discuss this.

After concealed carry officially comes into play in Illinois and I have my permit, I intend to ask the church leadership permission to do so. I can think of some possible objections they might raise and have listed my responses

1) Policemen are trained (My response " I was trained in the military and qualified expert with a pistol and have taught marksmanship to my company and ran several live-fire ranges for my battalion. I also practice more in a month than most law enforcement officers do in a year)

2) The church might be liable if you accidently shoot someone. ( as I understand the law, the church is only responsible if I am part of a designated security team but consult an attorney for clarification)

3) It will scare people if they know you are armed (The church members will never know I'm armed. That is what concealed carry is all about)

Anyway, this is my thinking so far and was wondering how you might proceed with the church leadership if you want to convince them that this would be a workable idea. I am by the way good friends with all the elders and pastor.

I have worked with a church to establish a battle plan for a killing spree scenario.  If you have one of those churches that say that God will protect you then ask them if they have any locks on their doors?  Do they have policies as far as nursery workers and protocols?  Why would they need such things if God is doing all the protecting?
Churches are fertile ground for killers.  The church I worked with was about 5 miles out of town...Do you know what the response time in Southern IL would be for that place on Sunday morning????
One other thing that needs to be addressed is that the Pastor routinely needs to announce that his church will NEVER preform any skits involving active shooter scenarios.  When this has happened in other churches in the past, the folks just sat in their pews thinking it was part of the program and didn't take cover or react until the blood was flowing.

digression.

Does anyone know the link about IL law that says CC on private party is legit? I always thought that CCarry cockblock encompassed everything in IL

Thanks for the responses.

Since the current Illinois CCW bill doesn't mentioned any restrictions on carrying in church, I'm not going to bring the matter up until I see what passes. As long as I'm legal, no one needs to know if I'm carrying or not. If they slip in a church restriction, then I will ask permission from the leadership. I will also strongly recommend to the church leadership that they not post a "No conceal carry" sign on the door. Given that mass shootings almost always occur in "gun-free zones", that should make sense to them. Especially since the shooting of Pastor Winters(Maryville) occurred right down the road from us.

How about zero extra rights for police and military over every other citizen of the United States.  I'd be happy with that.

Why, if CCW is ever permitted in Illinois, would you ask your church leadership permission for anything?  From someone in a CCW state, it's none of their business.  You carry for your protection, and church is no exception.  You don't carry with the permission of anyone, it's a right, and as such, you just carry your personal protection with you.

Boot.

Friends,   Congratulations!
It appears your struggle to gain a bisic freedom is reaching fruition.

In my home state, Missouri, places of worship are on the list of prohibited places.  However, CCW is allowed with approval of the church hierachy.  In my experience, that permission is very easy to get.  Since CCW inception in Missouri, I have belonged to two churches.  In both cases, when asked, the pastors gave immediate approval.  In both instances I was prepared for philosophical discussions.  None was necessary.   In most cases I think you will be amazed and pleased at the realistic attitude of your ministers.

Again, good job and congratulations.

Unfortunately, my pastor is anti-2nd Amendment - the only thing I don't like about him. When I started shooting last year, I made the mistake of putting a picture of my first target up on Facebook. Pastor is one of my friends. He made comments the next Sunday, actually telling me to not carry at gun at church. I told him it was illegal in IL.This was the first I knew he was anti-gun. He's good friends with another pastor up in WI. When WI got CCW, that pastor put up a no carry sign at his church. So, I'm fully expecting mine to do that when IL gets CCW.

There are a couple of us who are shooters who always sit together at coffee hour following the service and talk guns.

I am fully expecting my pastor to post a no guns sign. However, concealed is concealed! I just have to find a holster that would work for on body carry, but I've been doing my research.

Even though we're a suburban church in a nice area, we get some folks looking for a handout and at least one of them has given off bad juju. We're a small congregation so anyone new sticks out. We're also not a particularly "diverse" congregations, so black men looking for a handout immediately stick out.

A new question that I posted in the LEO forum.

My church in Illinois is in the process of making a decision of whether to allow conceal carry at church. Currently, one active state policeman and one retired state policeman conceal carry at church. If the church posts a no-conceal carry sign, after the Illinois conceal carry law goes into effect, does that impact their ability to conceal carry in church?

I sort of initiated this whole conversation with the leadership, by keeping them informed of the status of Illinois legislation. I have communicated with the leadership about the hazards involved in posting a no concealed carry sign. In other words, it makes us a target , in my opinion.

I'm sure a lot of businesses and churches are thinking about  the issue and I'm attempting to give as accurate information as I can to the church leadership on the topic.

One of the plaintiffs in the cases that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on was beaten within an inch of her life, in her church.
These are the cases with the June 9th deadline for legislation permitting carry in IL.

It will be interesting to see how Illinois works through carry issues. In Missouri we went from not legal to carry in church to carry with pastor permission only. As a fellow Missourian mentioned some churches are fine with it. Some pastors have digressed this decision to church elders. This would be the case in my church.

The head deacon in our church is who the yea or ney goes to and his policy is simple. Only deacons with regular attendance can carry or active/retired LEO. We have both in regular attendance, one active duty state patrol, one retired PD. There's maybe 4 deacons who carry.

Missouri had a church security team travel the state helping churches develop security strategies. One of the first scenarios painted was a church full of gun packing attendees throwing down on a supposed threat, from there the picture began to take shape as liability and risk assessment.

As you might imagine that painting wasn't a picture the elders/deacons liked and a "fall on the sword" policy adopted. Basically the plan is this, tackle threat and sit on threat until authorities arrive. Those shot and killed taking threat down are sacrificial lambs, sacrificed doing God's work.

I'm 49 years young, my father/head deacon/elder is 70 this month. I'm not a deacon, nor do I have his blessing to conceal carry in church. I haven't been to church but a few times since the decision passed church board. This is something you will struggle with inside your church, family and within your own hearts.

My advice, concealed is concealed. What few times I've been in church since new policy I was concealed, but not in good conscious. So there is my dilemma, one easily solved in finding a new church.

dc.

I wanted to pass this on. After sending the leadership the information on the Illinois law as passed, and poiinting out that they would have to post a no-concealed carry sign on the door if they did not want to allow conceal carry, the leadership is 100% in agreement that they do not want to post the sign.

The good guys, which the church leadership are, made the right decision on this.

One thing I did learn from this. If you are a member of a church, then make yourself be the source of information on the concealed carry if you want it to go your way. Its what lobbyist do and if concealed carry is important to you, be the go-to guy on the information the leadership gets on the issue.

Ok got some good news from the leadership:


Dear WtJen,



The elders have met and discussed the IL Conceal Carry bill.   In light of the bill, and the information you provided, we have begun the process to re-evaluate our current safety procedures.  We wanted to communicate to you, that we will not be posting "Gun-Free Zone" signs in the church window.  As far as carrying in the church, we will leave it up to the individual, if they want to carry in church.  As part of the re-evaluation of the safety procedures, we will be asking those that will be carrying to voluntarily communicate that to our Safety Team Leader (currently XXXXXX).  Neither the elders, nor the staff need to know who is carrying, but we believe that the Safety Team Leader would find this information valuable.  We will be sending a letter to the congregation in the near future regarding the conceal carry issue and the plans to re-evaluate the safety procedures.


Since you brought this issue to our attention we wanted to communicate these things to you as soon as we had a decision.  Thank you for your thoughts regarding the issue, and as always, feel free to contact any of us at any time.


In His service,


XXXXXXX

God Bless them and you.

We would like to see this information over on IllinoisCarry.com too.
Could you post it over there or give me permission to share it and I can post it.
It would be best if you posted it as there might be others that want to ask questions about your process.

Thanks
Mike
IllinoisCarry.com

No.

I'll set up an account over there when I get off work and post it.