By Brandon Curtis

A Tennessee pastor was captured on camera tackling a man who had pulled a gun and pointed it at churchgoers. The incident happened during a Nashville church service yesterday.

The man, identified as 26-year-old Dezire Baganda, was sitting in the front row at Nashville Light Mission Pentecostal Church that afternoon when he pulled out a gun and went up to the altar as the pastor was praying with members of the church, according to a news release from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.

Baganda pointed the gun at the congregants and told them to get up, according to police. The pastor had other ideas, though, and snuck around behind the man and tackled him, forcing him to the ground.

“I would say that God used me because I felt like I was going to use the back door as an example as going on by trying to go behind him,” Pastor Ezekiel Ndikumana told WKRN. “And then I felt the feeling that I would go and grab him… and that’s what happened.”

The incident was captured by the church’s security camera . . .

Baganda was ultimately disarmed with the help of multiple churchgoers and taken into custody. He is being charged with 15 counts of felony aggravated assault, with additional charges expected.

The pastor said that Baganda had been to their services before, but was not a member of the church. No other information was immediately available.

I reached out to attorney Phil Nelsen, an expert in firearm law and founder of Legal Heat, to ask about the whether carrying in a church in Tennessee is legal. He responded quickly, as always . . . “Yes, unless it’s posted or unless the church is being used for educational (school) purposes.”

We can’t say for sure if signs were posted at this particular location, or if any members of the church carry firearms, but the pastor’s actions did indeed save the day. The move by the pastor was risky, however, and luckily things turned out in favor of the good guys.

It’s not clear what Baganda had in mind. It could have been an attempted armed robbery, an attempted mass shooting, or something altogether different. The lesson here, as always, is you are your own first responder.

 

This post was originally published at Concealed Nation and is reprinted here with permission. 

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

47 COMMENTS

  1. And that is why I carry when I preach. I’m not wrestling with someone hoping that trigger doesn’t get pulled. Pull a gun in my church and myself and at least three others will draw down on you.

    • I’ll be bringing this incident up to our Safety Team during the next meeting. We always make use of reminders such as this.

    • Yup. Minimum of 3 person team, armed and armored. And rifle capable from up top. Radios and earpieces commed up. Praise the Lord, with the Full Armor of God.

    • “I’m not wrestling with someone hoping that trigger doesn’t get pulled. Pull a gun in my church and myself and at least three others will draw down on you.”

      Preach it, Mr. Preacher.

      Pretty much the same response if that happened in my church. There will be ringing ears in that sanctuary after that happened…

      • Whatever, ‘man’, you would be cowering in the corner while the real men took care of business.

        • The corner is my posted position, moron. Anyone with actual armed security experience will tell you that. No one can sneak up behind you without you noticing it, when you are in a corner.

          Now, go back to jerking off in the basement, little boy. The adults are talking. Maybe mom will bring you some Spaghetti-Os to snort up your nose… 😉

  2. supports the FBI findings that blacks victimize blacks with violent crime

    New 2021 FBI Crime Data shows;

    A. A record record surge in Black-on-Black homicide, and increase in Anti-White Hate Crimes.

    B. The number of black known homicide offenders rose to almost 60%, with the same demographic committing over 50% of all violent crimes.

    C. Anti-white hate crimes are the second most common hate crime category. The data also show that black offenders of hate crimes occurred at over twice the rate per 100,000 people than hate crimes committed by white offenders.

    D. On average, black Americans commit hate crimes at a rate that is three times higher than whites per 100,000 according to FBI crime data from the five previous years.

    E. Traditionally, white Americans are far more often victims of interracial crime than any other group. In 2018, The Bureau of Justice Statistics released their survey of criminal victimization, breaking down 593,598 interracial violence between blacks and whites. Black Americans committed 537,204 of those interracial felonies or 90 percent, and white Americans committed 56,394 of them or less than 10 percent.

    F. Furthermore, despite making up only 13.4% of the American population, black Americans commit more than double the amount of interracial homicides on white Americans, who make up 60.4% of the American population.

    and further, additionally; In 2012-13, then-President Obama’s DOJ recorded that black Americans committed 85 percent of all interracial victimizations between blacks and whites; white Americans only committed around 15 percent.

    According to the 2018 National Crime Victimization Survey, for black victims of violent crime 70.3% of their offenders were black and 10.6% of their offenders were white. In other words, according to the 2018 National Crime Victimization Survey, the overwhelming majority of violent crimes against blacks are committed by other blacks.

    and its escalating in some areas of the country

    • We have here, claims to data, but data is not information. Do you have a conclusion of why the lack of current references? Is there a single link to the data? My experience has been frustrating as relates to online searches for data sources (even within a data collection).

    • better yet.. trust in God to act THROUGH YOU. That means, be alert, and availble. And if you sense Him telling you to DO THIS or that, don’t hesitate.

      This man saved the day by first recognising the threat, then beginning to act long before he had a plan. As he moved, God directed him and he followed thouse counrse changes. The perp ws safely grounded, taken into suctody and no one hurt/ That is as good an outcome as anyone could ever ask for anywhere. Once he BEGAN to move, the bad guy was done. Hoefull, now he’s in a betterposition toLISTEN he just may be able to HEAR when God speaks to him about his present condition, and draw the perp to Himself. That would be the BEST outcome of the event.

      • “And if you sense Him telling you to DO THIS or that, don’t hesitate.“

        Perhaps that is exactly what the perpetrator did, he “sensed” Him telling him to “DO THIS or that“…

        Pray tell, what technique would one use to determine whether the urge to “do this or that” came from above or below?

        The holy Bible is full of examples of the Lord telling his followers to kill innocent humans, to “dash the babies’ brains out against a wall” so how does one know that the feeling is valid and worthy of action?

  4. Glad to see people not putting up with that crap anymore. God bless the pastor and his congregation.

    • I have (little) problem if localities want to institute programs like ‘Cease Fire’, since versions of that have proven to drive down local murder rates.

      So let ’em do it, especially if it shuts up their constant yammering for more gun laws…

  9. Be interesting to know what make/model pistol he had there. That’s one long slide on that puppy.

  10. Unfortunately too many headed for the door and not the perp. It should have been a butt kicking pile-on the disgusting perp would remember for the rest of his life…providing he survived.

    I did like the “Cheerleader lady” on the left second row…She’s a hoot.

  11. …the ever-living f?

    Quick thinking on the Pastor’s part. Well done indeed.

    On an unrelated note, I need some independent non-shill advice on the subject of new carry piece. Narrowed down between P320 RXP XCompact & FN’s 509C (compact) Tactical, because immediate optics equipping, night sights, & 1/3 cw capability. I know the spec sheet pro’s & con’s well, looking for relatable experience with either or both.

    Thoughts?

    • Glad to hear your ‘situation’ has been cleared in your favor.

      I’ve no experience with the models you mentioned, but have been very pleased with the CZ 2075 RAMI I picked up. Call it a ‘shorty’ CZ 75. A bit thick, but dead-nuts reliable, so far. I vary from carrying that to a Ruger LCR in .357. The LCR drops into my front pocket neat as a pin and is quick to extract if necessary.

      (On a totally unrelated note, any chance you could be talked out of a pair of those Pass custom SET (?) devices? I have a serious Jones to put together a ‘First Watt’ clone of my own…)

      • Yeppers, & thanks. AG’s office took their sweet time with the dismissal, but I’m cleared and gtg. Funny thing, when they returned my property, they even handed back the empty hull, if you can believe?

        Love the 75’s, but force multipliers are on the table as priority for this one considering current circumstances. Liable to be low light or dark with regard to the immediate threat model.

        Dude, I am so very sorry. It didn’t cross my mind you might be interested when I had to fire sale some things to deal with the legal defense in May of last year. I have only enough spare transistors left to wholly refurbish one, should something go radically sideways. Even sold my Jupiter VT’s to avoid selling that last set.

        • They gave you back the empty.

          Kinda weird. I suppose you could get it mounted on a little hoop to wear as a neck chain charm if you wanted, but I doubt you want the reminder.

          Had a small situation of my own resolved in my favor, got the plate and screws removed from my ankle, asked for one of the titanium as a souvenir, they declined for ‘health reasons’. Bummer, I wanted it to hang on a chain of my own. Able to get it removed thanks to the police report from my little trauma experience, it seems the person who hit me must have been distracted, since the driver behind her saw the red strobe on my bike clearly. That put a few extra bucks in my pocket, over and above the expenses of 5 days in the trauma ward. Got me some cash to sock away, and a couple of nice boom-sticks. When the cans are released from purgatory, will have a suppressed .300 blk for home defense.

          Oh, well, perhaps Nelson can be persuaded to release the semiconductor ‘recipe’ for those magical voltage devices. I bet a Taiwan or China semiconductor fab could be persuaded to knock a few thousand out, or a university that teaches semiconductor manufacturing. Make a helluva PhD thesis for someone…

        • Geoff PR,

          I was having trouble following your conversation. If I understand correctly, you are looking for some transistors to refurbish something–and thinking that you need exact replacements. I am pretty confident that a similar transistor is available which would function as well as the original.

        • Uncommon, no, that would as close to impossible as it gets for one reason –

          The original device was an experimental one developed by Toshiba in the late 1970s, IIRC. It’s a real oddball that acts as a voltage device, not a current device, as most transistors usually are. The result is, it exhibits characteristics more like a vacuum tube than a transistor.

          A brutally talented audio amplifier designer named Nelson Pass years back got a hold of some of the very few remaining new old stock (NOS) examples and was so impressed by what he found he went to a few transistor manufacturers to have them do a short production run, just for him as the only customer. It cost him some eye-watering money for him to do so.

          Anyways, Pass isn’t selling any of his stash since he’s using them in his new high-end amplifier company, but had been known to give a few away to the home-built audiophile community.

          9×39 happened to acquire a few that way, but his legal bills forced him to sell the few he had to pay it off.

          In further thinking, Pass may not want to share the ‘secret recipe’, since that’s how he makes amplifiers that sound like no other company’s.

          I’m very well familiar with cross-referencing replacement transistors for obsolete parts no longer in production, but those solid-state devices are truly ‘unobtainium’… 🙁

        • Geoff PR,

          At the risk of revealing a lot of information about myself:

          When you said the device was a voltage amplifier rather than a current amplifier and that it acted more like a vacuum tube–that screams of a Field Effect Tran$istor commonly referenced simply by its acronym FET. Having said that, FETs were commonly available in the late 1970s. And since we are probably talking about power audio amplifiers, it makes me wonder the device is actually a high-power Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Tran$istor commonly referenced as MOSFETs–which were just coming into their own about that timeframe. (That would explain why the device was “experimental”.)

          Regardless, if you have a circuit schematic diagram of the audio amplifier and some very basic parameters (such as rated maximum output power and internal D.C. voltage supplies), it would not be all that hard to figure out what parameters a new device must have to perform the intended function in the circuit and then identify a suitable device. If you do not have the circuit schematic and basic parameters, then you are likely out of luck.

        • Fascinating discussion, and I concur with most of it.
          The advent of the FET was a real revolution, giving us a high impedance version of the original semi conductors was a good thing.

          MOSFETs are great power devices, forward resistances in fractions of an Ohm equal less voltage drop and less power lost in the device.

          It is correct that, generally, semiconductors are current operated and vacuum tubes are voltage operated. The difference in sonics is related to how each device distorts and creates harmonics. So far, there is no substitute for the sweet, even distortion of a slightly over driven vacuum tube.

          And while exotic semiconductor devices can be pricey, if I could just find a half dozen original VF14 valves, I could retire. Designed for use in Panzers, there is no better impedance converter/preamp for microphones ever devised. And they have been out of print for decades.

          No doubt someday soon, someone will discover a massive cache of NOS VF14s hidden in some lost Werhmacht supply bunker…

      • I replied and got a awaiting moderator approval. Copied it, so if it doesn’t pop up soon, I’ll repost it slightly altered.

    • I’ve got a P320 RXP for my wife’s EDC, good gun. I liked it and she likes it. Haven’t had any problems with it. I’d buy it again. I don’t like the grip on the FN 509 C.

      • I can’t get the FN to go hands on with, there is absolutely nothing left in town. Largest LGS here has 7 pistols left in stock, none of which I am interested in.

        Thanks for the weighing in.

        • There’s always G-broker and the like, at an anal rape markup…

  12. Yay! Notice these are African folks who came to America. Likely from Nigeria. Sadly those American black folks slaughtered in South Carolina were trusting and clueless.Unlike at my large Baptist church we are armed and ready. Go & do likewise…

  13. Wow. The churches I have been in the south, the pastor keeps a hand gun on the lectern for everyone to see. I’m glad no one got shot.

    • “I’m glad no one got shot.”

      That ended pretty much ideally…

  14. Well done Preacher ! He had obviously thought about self-defense before the emergency arose. Hence, he was confident in the need to love his neighbors by defending them. Mindset is critical !

  15. Look like the Lady in Gold tripped the gunman, after the Preacher tackled him.
    Wish someone had tackled that Lunatic Roof, in S.C.

Comments are closed.