Giving guns to your employer
We were recently the local contractor for a protective detail in the Mid-East. While in general we do not recommend carrying guns, in this particular case there was some risk of being caught in the internecine warfare endemic to the region, and so being armed was a prudent idea. Note that this was not a risk brought on by a threat to this particular client per se, but by the mere nature of the region.
The security director for the client, a former police officer, had a number of perfectly reasonable textbook questions: What kind of guns were being carried, what kind of ammunition, etc. This caused our people some amusement, as the answer was that they carried the same guns carried by the police and army, and used the same ammunition as did the police and army.
The next request from the security director was to be given a gun, which was declined for several reasons. Least important was that we knew nothing about his shooting skills, nor about how he handled live fire situations.
More important was that, if shot at, the protective team would return fire and evacuate. Most of the conversation would, under stress, fall into the local language, and the desire to be doing a secondary translation into English would be minimal. Having an armed person who had no clue as to what was going on would have placed his boss at greater risk.
