SAN DIEGO – On average, they make $18 an hour. Many are required to provide their own body armor. And when a gunman bursts through the door of a church, Walmart or government office, they’re relied on to confront intruders hellbent on wreaking deadly consequences.
That’s the unspoken job description for a private security guard in the United States.
The nation’s more than 1.2 million private security personel are nearly twice the country’s estimated 700,000 police officers but often melt into the scenery as people go about their daily lives. As uniformed fixtures at banks, hospitals, schools, retail stores, apartment complexes and municipal buildings, their sometimes vague or questionable presence has made some of them objects of ridicule, as rendered in the 2009 film “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”…