Ray Barron, owner of Freedom Defense Training, moves through and clears a hallway during a safety training session Wednesday, October 18, 2023, at a church near Tyler. (Les Hassell/News-Journal Photo)

Within minutes, or even seconds, buildings built as havens of peace and safety can fill with terror — and after, overflow with grief.

Welcome to 21st century America — The Age of the Mass Shooter.

It’s easy to understand why a gunman with a hunger to take as many lives as possible would target a church or school. They’re our vulnerable points of access, where a blanket of innocence hides the potential for violence.

Just as schools across East Texas and the state have taken multiple steps in recent years to increase security and defend against armed intruders, so have churches. That includes introducing firearms into the mix.

A recent survey by Lifeway Research, an evangelical research firm, reported 54% of U.S. pastors use armed defenders in their churches. Dean Clow, who oversees security at First Baptist Church in Tyler, told us in a recent story that he believes that number is closer to 80% in the Tyler-Longview area.

It’s a growing trend ripe with the possibility of danger. That’s because training for armed volunteers acting as church security isn’t required under state law.

Churches decide if — or how well — their armed defenders are prepared.

While state lawmakers rightfully made training necessary for the Guardian Plan for schools, it’s confounding why no such requirement is in place for volunteer church security.

The Guardian Plan allows school districts to authorize certain employees to carry firearms on school premises and respond to an active shooter. According to the Texas Association of School Boards, state law requires those employees to take 15 to 20 hours of training on protection of students; interaction of firearm license holders with first responders; tactics for denying an intruder entry into a school facility or classroom; and methods for increasing a firearm license holder’s accuracy with a handgun while under duress.

Additionally, the association recommends that school districts “should require any employee designated to carry a firearm to obtain and maintain a handgun license through (the Texas Department of Public Safety).”

Those are sensible requirements for such an important responsibility, and the lack of any such stipulations in the state’s church defender law undermines what is supposedly its purpose — to keep congregants safe.

The law, in essence, shoots itself in the foot.

Ray Barron, the founder of Freedom Defense Training, explained why proper preparation is essential for volunteer church security.

“When you take a church building or a school building, man, those are some of the most dangerous environments to draw a firearm,” he told the Morning Telegraph. “If you take on the role of a responder, you 100% have to know what you’re doing.”

But state law doesn’t require folks acting as church defenders to “know what they’re doing.”

Shot a gun once or twice at a range? Gone hunting? Watch a lot of police shows on TV? Heck, ever held a firearm — or seen one? In Texas, checking any of those boxes (or none) qualifies a congregant to holster up and defend a church from an armed intruder.

The common sense black hole, which seems to consume more of the state Capitol each legislative session, strikes again.

Lawmakers should fix this alarming oversight in state law and set a minimum level of required training.

But even if that happens, money is a problem. Training by reputable companies, such as Barron’s, isn’t cheap. That’s why the state also should make grant funding available to churches or find other way to subsidize the cost.

The world isn’t getting safer, and churches across East Texas aren’t immune to tragedy.

But the law that should help prevent such a tragedy is flawed. Unless the Legislature acts, it’s only a matter of time before an accident born out of improper training or simple incompetence has deadly consequences.