LETTER: Metal detectors useless without armed security personnel

In his recent letter, Richard Pratt recommends that metal detectors and X-ray machines be used to screen people before they enter churches rather than have armed security inside to prevent shootings. But metal detectors are useless unless there is armed personnel inside the church.

Law-abiding people will honor the metal detectors. But the criminal who is planning a mass shooting will walk right through the metal detector to commit the horrific crime. The law against murder did not stop the mass shooter, so it is naïve to think that a metal detector will either. That is why there is always armed security personnel and police officers nearby wherever there are metal detectors.

So “a good guy with a gun” is still needed to “stop the bad guy with a gun,” notwithstanding the presence of a metal detector