Security Guards

[jimmyj]

Hi:
Observing Security Guards in Malls, Hospitals, Retail Stores, Etc. I have wondered why these personnal are un-armed?
Most are wearing equipment belts with the usual police type items but negative firearms.
With all the shootings lately in Public Buildings these personnel would be victims like the other innocent victims.
If the Employers want security, arm the Security Guards.
Jimmy

 

[jimmyj]

Hi:
Observing Security Guards in Malls, Hospitals, Retail Stores, Etc. I have wondered why these personnal are un-armed?
Most are wearing equipment belts with the usual police type items but negative firearms.
With all the shootings lately in Public Buildings these personnel would be victims like the other innocent victims.
If the Employers want security, arm the Security Guards.
Jimmy

 

[2Loud4You]

I'm guessing the main reason is insurance.

 

[Dennis The B]

You need to read this thread. This explains why some of these guys shouldn't be armed.

Mall Ninja

 

[David LaPell]

I did security work for about 10 years before I got into law enforcement. Most of it was high end industrial work. Insurance is the huge reason for not having armed guards. The other is the pay. Most companies only pay their guards slightly above minimum wage, either hiring twenty somethings, or retirees, with maybe a few in the middle. My boss in one job was an ex cop, and I'll tell you that our department was the first one mentioned whenever layoffs were debated. But insurance kept us there. Having security is usually there to stem off lawsuits, but almost all companies think arming them is only the cause of another.

 

[Guest]

The answer is pure and simple - Dollar$$$. We have a few "Armed Security Guards" around here but they are few and far between. The places that can afford the Big Buck$$$ are hiring off duty LEOs but that is really pricey. And, can be iffy because if something major goes down the LEOs may be all on duty and then all bets are off. The "Job" comes first and some LEOs simply aren't interested in wearing the Uniform any longer than they have to so Off Duty work isn't in their lifestyle.

 

[J.M]

I work hospital security. There are a couple of reasons not to arm officers. First and foremost is safety. We deal with a lot of psych patients in the E.D. and weapons retention would be a nightmare. When the PD are called to assist, they all unload their weapons before dealing with impaired patients. Another big reason is training expense and certainly liability is a concern. With constant cutbacks in funding by government and private insurers, facilities are under extreme pressure to reduce costs. Keeping a small force trained would be extremely cost prohibitive in this environment.

 

[Ogandydancer]

The places that can afford the Big Buck$$$ are hiring off duty LEOs but that is really pricey. ]

There are also lots of places in N.C. that do that and I really think it is wrong for the taxpayers to be furnishing their uniforms and using city owned vehicles to transport them to and from these positions. Not to mention using all the other tax dollar owned equiptment while on these posts.

I have done Security guard work in the past and it was much different times than now with all the shootings and mayhem that has taken place in our country lately so, I wouldn't take that type of job this day and time unless I were allowed to be armed.

 

[feralmerril]

I did it for over 35 years. Lockheed aircraft 35, universal movie studios and one other.
As others said probley insurance cost is the prime reason to be unarmed. Every state probley has different rules. All my work was in california starting in 1964 to 2000. In the early days you could be turned loose with a gun and no training. But lockheed when I hired in did have our own in house training. The state came out around 1970 with rules set up by the states consumers affair dept for guard and gun training, handeling the cards and permits.
By their guidelines we had to go to class`s about two weeks at first as I recall. I know I was in one of the first class`s set up, as I carried the lowest gun permit many instructors seen through the years of qualifications. At first we had to requalify once a year, but they dropped it down to every 6 months quite awhile ago. We had to go to powers of arrest class`s (should have called no powers of arrest) but once you got your card it was yours and not the companys, so you still could work elsewhere on it. I have been retired 9 years so some things must have changed.
If you are a guard you either work for a contractor, or what we called in house. The contract guards get paid the least and in house usualy pays about double. Probley no place in the country paid more than lockheed. However eventualy they went to a two tear system and even had part time guards.
Might be I got paid two or three times as much as a mall guard, BUT to get the job you had to pass many goverment background checks. If you ever had a traffic ticket over $50 we had to report it immediately, we had to get permission to step into mexico or canada, you had to report about any family getting into trouble etc. (lockheed is a defendse company).

 

[n4zov]

Some years ago I was a local range when a group of newly hired security guards showed up to receive firearms training. Each guard fired six rounds from a revolver and a couple of shots from a 12 ga. At that point, they were deemed "trained and qualified." Hopefully other agencies do a better job than those bozos, but it sure soured me on arming security guards.

 

[feralmerril]

n4zov, I cant speak for other states and companys, but our training was exstendsive. California to get your original gun and guard cards were over two weeks of class`s. That was followed up by haveing to requalify every 6 months or lose it. Of course depending where you went to requalify some were easier, some harder than others. After I retired and moved to utah I got a permit here. I couldnt belive the differance. Personaly, I thought it a joke in compareison. Only listen to a 4 hour philibuster and NO range time!
Now what I was referring to in california, was for armed guards. It probley WAS NOT for what a person to get a ccw.
Thats not to say I didnt see some sorry shooters try to qualify. There was people that didnt make it. We had people on my dept that had to go through it a number of times. They might hang on for awhile on a few unarmed posts, but eventualy got fired or find something like driveing a fork lift later.
Not so much in my later years, but when I first hired in, the chief wouldnt hire anyone unless they already had LEO or military background. On the average I would estimate we had about a 250 person dept. We even had our own range and rangemaster. The state stepped in about in 1970 and things changed.
I wrote a month or two ago how I started. I was out of a job and took my first contract guard job in 1964 for I think, $1.35 a hour. The guy hired me, gave me about a 15 minute lecture, a adress to go and relive another guard. Got there, this old russian wanted to see mine. I saw he wasnt visably wearing one, so he got through looking at mine, I said, well where is yours? He pulled out a colt DS out of his back pocket, I pulled a rag out of the barrel and said whats this? Ugh, thats to keep it from rusting!
The next morning I heard a commotion, went outside to a buch of pickiters that were on strike! I wasnt even told that the factory was on strike by anyone! And they were unruly and downright mean. I was the only one there. Welcome to my first shift as a guard.

 

[cmort666]

Originally posted by David LaPell:
I did security work for about 10 years before I got into law enforcement. Most of it was high end industrial work. Insurance is the huge reason for not having armed guards. The other is the pay. Most companies only pay their guards slightly above minimum wage, either hiring twenty somethings, or retirees, with maybe a few in the middle. My boss in one job was an ex cop, and I'll tell you that our department was the first one mentioned whenever layoffs were debated. But insurance kept us there. Having security is usually there to stem off lawsuits, but almost all companies think arming them is only the cause of another.

I was the Facility Security Officer (personnel, document, and info security as well as comsec) for a cleared NASA contractor in Cleveland. When we moved to a new facility across the street from NASA Lewis, they hired armed guards. Aside from one VERY large fellow who seemed pretty level headed, they were repeatedly trouble. First, one lost a ring of keys to all of (the unclassified areas in) the building. Second, one was playing fast draw with the lady's room door in the middle of the night and he got the drop on it. The company was nothing if not full of smartasses. The next day, one of the programmers drew a chalk body outline on the door, with the bullet hole in the middle.

 

[Wheelgunner840]

Our pal Gecko45 (The original "Mall Ninja"!) should be checking in shortly. He has posted here recently.

WG840

 

[norad45]

As long as they are law-abiding, I don't know why security guards should have to give up their 2A rights to be armed any more than anybody else.

 

[David LaPell]

Here in NY, I know armed guards have to go through the same 48 hour training that all LE Officers get. I remember during a strike at our paper mill, we hired a security company that was more problems that the picketers. We were constantly waking them up when they fell asleep (at all hours), I mean these guys would bring pillows and blankets. We had one of their supervisors having extramarital affairs with one of his employees. It was a real mess. We ended up firing the whole company, because they were nothing but one disaster after another.

 

[Andy Taylor]

I am an armed security officer, chief of a small in house security department in fact. I only hire armed officers.
The industry as a whole has problems. Especially in the contract world. Some companies pay the guards as little as possible, and bid the contracts accordingly. Therefore they do not get quality employees. The salespeople then bid a job for significantly less than the other guy, who is paying a decent wage, and has good quality employees. The client either doesn't know the difference, or doesn't care because they are only getting security because, nine times out of ten, their insurance carrier, or some local ordnance says they have to.
The public perception has a lot to do with the lack of armed security. I can not tell you how many times someone has said "there must be a lot of problems here for them to have armed security."
Insurance is also a big reason. In CA if you hire armed security you are required to carry $1,000,000 liability policy. If you hire unarmed security, no insurance is required.

 

[feralmerril]

I can only estimate how many different guards I worked with at lockheed in my 35 years, somewhere between 700 to a 1,000 is my best guess. I would estimate that a big mistake was made in hireing only 5 to 10 of them in my 35 years. But then we had old time good chiefs that hired them, after doing past careers high up in other big city departments like Los Angles and chicago, a couple came with CIA and FBI high backgrounds as supervisors.
As said, we were highly checked out by DOD and just about every spook agency I ever heard of. Of course that was because we worked on or had possible access to info of the best kept secret aircraft in the world.
The job wasnt hard or dangerous, I would think a mall guard might see more action.
But probley no other type departments were "tryed out" on a regular basis either. Every program I worked on, some spook would "try" us out as a matter of program requirements, maybe a average of once a month.
That meant maybe trying to get through you with a mickey mouse ID, setting off alarms and timeing your respondse time, trying to take out secret paperwork to see if we would catch it or not etc.
A lot of fellow guards I worked with were double dippers after about every agency you want to name.
Still, we did have a few "embaressments", but damn few!

 

[The Last Standing Knight]

Originally posted by Lucky Derby:
I am an armed security officer, chief of a small in house security department in fact. I only hire armed officers.
The industry as a whole has problems. Especially in the contract world. Some companies pay the guards as little as possible, and bid the contracts accordingly. Therefore they do not get quality employees. The salespeople then bid a job for significantly less than the other guy, who is paying a decent wage, and has good quality employees. The client either doesn't know the difference, or doesn't care because they are only getting security because, nine times out of ten, their insurance carrier, or some local ordnance says they have to.
The public perception has a lot to do with the lack of armed security. I can not tell you how many times someone has said "there must be a lot of problems here for them to have armed security."
Insurance is also a big reason. In CA if you hire armed security you are required to carry $1,000,000 liability policy. If you hire unarmed security, no insurance is required.

Having worked in the contract security guard field before, I agree with your statement for the most part.
Security Guards are "supposed" to "observe, report, and document". This is not entirely correct.
When you get down to the nitty gritty of what a guard is for, it comes down to accepting liability for the client that hired them (read: scapegoat,); to deal with the public (public relations/complaints/clerks/etc); and to act as a detterent to criminal activity (read: scarecrow).
Security guards are not LEO's even though their uniforms and often vehicles imply otherwise. Most of the time, the have no authority except as a normal man-on-the-street.
In short, they are hired to take the lawsuit for their client/customer. I could go on, but I think you get the general idea.
I've seen security guards blamed for and lose their jobs for doing their job, at the whim of the client or the guard company, or for things that they had absolutely no control over.
The whole contract guard industry is, IMHO, rather shady at best.

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

From what I have seen, the security guard is paid to call the police in case of emergency - preferably from cover. Armed security guards can better fight their way out to call the police, but I have never met a security guard who felt that his compensation was enough to put him in a fire fight when he had the option to flee.

 

[KeithCarter]

I have been a security guard in Illinois, both armed (armored truck) and unarmed (businesses, nights, alone).

When you are alone at night "protecting" multi-millions in assets, you are quite aware that killing the security guy leaves no witnesses. Illinois says no guns. The company says no guns.

We used to totally ignore the fools who would sell our lives for a few bucks or votes. We took care of business.