Yesterday I posted about the Colorado church shootings and wrote that I was thankful that New Life Church had “enough foresight to employ security guards who could actually protect them, ending the tragedy much sooner than the gunman would have.”  The gunman (who will remain unnamed in this column) was shot by Jeanne Assam, an armed security guard.

New details have emerged today that only further show how true that is.  Channel 7 News in Denver is reporting today that the gunman entered New Life “carrying two handguns, an assault rifle and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition.” 

In addition, KUSA-TV in Denver is reporting that the gunman, who had been kicked out of Youth With a Mission (a missionary training school), had also left more than a dozen threatening messages on a church website with the most recent one, posted less than twelve hours before the rampage began, containing the following excerpt:

“…God, I can’t wait till I can kill you people.  Feel no remorse, no sense of shame, I don’t care if I live or die in the shoot-out. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you … as I can especially Christians…”

With three guns, a thousand rounds of ammo, and a stated diabolical aim to kill as many Christians as he can, I’d say the gunman intended to shoot more than three people at New Life Church.  While this is still an immense tragedy, as two teenage sisters were killed in the attack, the foresight of New Life Church to allow licensed, qualified guards to carry guns and the bravery of Jeanne Assam to use it did, in fact, put an end to the tragedy long before the gunman would have.