Private bodyguards have the same rights as every other civilian. This means that if a state prohibits people from having firearms, private bodyguards wouldn’t be treated differently.
How then will a private unarmed bodyguard be able to protect a vip in very dangerous parts of town where almost everyone (Edit: a lot of persons) has illegally obtained firearms? Are they trained to disarm people? Or do they just scatter and bail?
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Can you give any examples of places where it is illegal to own/carry firearms but “almost everyone has illegally owned firearms”?
There’s a few angles to this.
In most countries where it’s illegal to carry firearms, there are trainings and licenses you can get to actually carry them. They’re very involved and costly, but a person with private bodyguards tends to have the resources for it.
For the people with private bodyguards that have business in the dangerous part of town where somehow everyone has illegal firearms, they don’t really care about whether firearms are illegal – they themselves tend to not be up to much good.
And of course, vast majority of locations even with shady activity do not have a huge array of firearms in firearm-illegal countries, and so it’s not strictly necessary in the first place.
It will vary from state to state, but generally armed private security is exempt from your typical firearm restrictions via special carrying licenses due to job duties
I used to work as an armed security guard, you just get a license through your city or state that says you can carry while on duty.
There are a couple things going on here.
1. Private security companies can be armed under certain c circumstances. Ever been in a bank with an armed guard but they weren’t police? It doesn’t always work in every state with a lot of traveling but in some situations it can work. It does vary by area to area but armed private security isn’t really that uncommon. There’s almost certainly permitting required but that’s up to the company for how badly it’s needed.
2. Executive protection isn’t always about getting in shootouts. In fact, long prolonged engagements are detrimental to the protectee’s life. The highest priority in protection is getting the protectee out of the threat area. [Using Regan’s shooting as an example. ](https://youtu.be/EYI79ziwh0w) The first thing Special Agent Jerry Parr did was yeet Reagan into the limo to get him away. Other agents did respond with force, but the primary consideration is getting away from the threat. There’s also just the awareness of other things. Venue choices, where is transportation, how fast can they get to it, is this crowd too close, etc.
Former private security contractor here. There are duty licenses that are obtained through the agency, and the requirements vary state by state. Some states recognize permits from other states, some don’t (not unlike a concealed carry permit for civilians). There’s always an exception built into the firearm restriction laws for private security companies that have been certified by the states in which they operate, which allow the guard to carry in places they normally wouldn’t be allowed to carry. Some states and locales restrict the carrying to while the guard is on duty, some don’t.
How it works is the agency for which the guard works determines where the guards will likely be working, and contacts the appropriate authorites in order to secure the licenses for the guards they’re planning to assign. The guards sit through the necessary classes (and dear God, its a *lot* of classes), fill out the appropriate paperwork, and either the agency or the state performs the necessary criminal and background checks (sometimes both, it depends on the state). Of course there are waiting periods, during which time the potential guards attend the other various classes the states require them to take (some require first aid training, some require damn near EMT-level training, some require legal training, etc.). Hell, the first three months of my employment were spent in a classroom.
But even with all of that, there are some places private security can’t carry. A celebrity isn’t taking their armed guards into a government building, be it city, state, or federal (there *are* diplomatic exceptions to everything, but a diplomat’s guards still aren’t carrying into, say, the White House).
Most people here missed that a bodyguard is hired to keep someone alive, not to neutralize a threat necessarily.
Just running away is often the best option, leaving law enforcement to deal with assailants.
There are usually exemptions for military or police, even when other citizens aren’t allowed to carry. In those cases, you hire military or police that are “off duty”.
In some places where this is the case, the security company can try to work with police to have armed cops on the security detail if absolutely necessary.
Also the special licenses that others have already mentioned.
I had friend who would do the bank deposits for a hotel and would routinely carry $10,00+ cash on him every day for that morning deposit. He was able to get a concealed carry permit under those circumstances.
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