The Conservative Cave

God Protects Those Who Prepare: Church Security Shouldn’t Be Controversial

https://www.shootingnewsweekly.com/concealed-carry/god-protects-those-who-prepare-church-security-shouldnt-be-controversial/

I appreciate feedback. It keeps me grounded, honest and on point. Once in a while it stings, but I learn from those mistakes. Sometimes, though, it makes me shake my head. In this case, there’s just no saving people who refuse to acknowledge that bad people exist. That evil exists. Sure, God will protect you. But God also protects those who protect themselves.

I received some critical feedback after The Urgent Case for Better Church Safety ran last month and it exposed a stubborn blind spot.

Critics attacked the allegedly crazy idea of armed people standing between evil and the congregation. One critic in particular dismissed safety teams as the mark of people who are merely “playing church.” Real churches that “know who God is,” he claimed in so many words, need no security because “He [God] has got them.” The commenter’s prescription was repentance, baptism, and seeking God’s face—while the rest of us should stop playing church.

That reasoning is short-sighted and dangerous. It treats prudence as a lack of belief and preparedness as spiritual failure. It’s the same logic that would refuse seat belts because one trusts God to protect them. Or refusing to seek immediate emergency medical treatment for chest pains. Scripture never equates faith with willful blindness to human evil or physical frailty. God protects those who take wise steps to protect themselves and the vulnerable in their care.

The proven benefits of a church safety team make the case stronger than any slogan. Medical emergencies vastly outnumber violent ones. Cardiac arrests, strokes, seizures, diabetic crises, falls, and choking incidents occur far more often than active threats.

The God who gave humans brains would not object to use those brains. More directly, among Jesus's instructions to his disciples was that they go out prepared - food, cothes, a sword.

One of the things I learned about my parents' church as a young teen when I was trained to be an usher was that it had a folding stretcher and other preparations against the possibility of a medical emergency (it was also located across the street from a hospital, but that location choice was based on land availability). It's sad that armed security is now necessary, but it has, literally, saved lives (e.g. the Colorado Springs church shooting).

US Marines sets sight on Epirus’ microwave weapon to defeat drone swarms

https://interestingengineering.com/military/us-microwave-weapon-epirus-drone-swarms

The country has awarded tech company Epirus an $11-million contract to deliver HAVOC, a vehicle-mounted high-power microwave system designed to disable multiple drones simultaneously.

Derived from the company’s Leonidas weapon, the High-power Microwave Autonomous Vehicle Operational Capability will be integrated across manned and unmanned Marine Corps ground vehicles.

The contract includes training, servicing and sustainment support, along with options for another system and related capabilities.
...
HAVOC represents the next stage of the Expeditionary Directed Energy Counter-Swarm system, or ExDECS, delivered to the Marine Corps in 2025.

While ExDECS introduced a deployable “one-to-many” approach for countering drones, its successor is expected to provide three times the power, greater range and improved ruggedness.

The system uses solid-state high-power microwave weapon components and gallium nitride amplifiers to generate and strengthen electromagnetic energy.

For some reason, the idea has been spread about that the US military is cluelessly unprepared for drones. Not only will this system become one of several layers in anti-drone defenses, it will be the second generation system in that layer.

One of the techniques Russia (and probably Ukraine) has been using to shield drones from RF interference is fiberoptic bable guidance. It's not a magic bullet, since the current maximum range is 12 or 13 miles, barely past front lines support areas. Also, while systems such as this one might not jam guidance signals, it may be strong enough to disrupt drones' control electronics generally (shielding entails weight, and more weight means shorter range).

It's interesting that the output power devices are gallium nitride rather than travelling-wave or cavity tubes. Very high microwave frequency and high power are niches in which vacuum tubes still perform best. Evidently, the frequency this system operates at is not super high and/or semiconductors continue to improve.

Someone just outed themself as a learing center graduate.

 

Now they care what intelligence agencies think?

1. nothing in the last 10 years convinces me that putin does not totally control this drone
if oxferd comma was about to clear krasnov, their report would be on the best seller list.

Nothing?! Not rebuilding America’s military? Not attacking Russia’s allies? Not supplying weapons to Ukraine?

1. The shamvestigation was opened in 2017 in retaliation for trump firing FBI Comey, with zero evidence of what supposedly was to be investigated.

2. The shamvestigation continued into 2019 or 2020 without finding any evidence of what supposedly was being investigated.

3. In the 4 years of the LIEden MalAdministration, this shamvestigation was not reopened.