TexasCHLforum.com

I have been thinking all day about how I would have responded if I had been there. To be honest after thinking about, this is the doomsday tactical solution.

The guy was armored from head to foot so even if you got an open shot, and hit him center mass, he may have been bruised but probably not stopped. If you hit him anywhere in the head other than his face, his bell might have been rung but he probably he wouldn't have been stopped. And given that he came armored up, he probably expected to be stopped but had decided he would not let that stop him from killing. So even if you had a clear shot, you would have had to shoot him in the face, a shot that I, and I dare say most of us, probably could not have made given the circumstances.

Beyond that, I normally sit halfway up in a theater. So at the beginning I would have had at least a 20 yard shot in the dark. At that distance, I could hit a stationary target on a range but a moving target in the dark? I don't know. And I doubt I would have even taken the shot given all the people who would have been between me and him.

Add to that the tear gas and/or smoke grenades he threw out and I doubt I could have seen him well enough to take any kind of shot.

So I would have probably gone to ground and tried to crawl, scrabble to an exit just like everyone else.

Then you think about how this could have been prevented and again it seems incredibly difficult if not impossible. This guy had a clean record with no known mental treatment. Frankly he probably could have qualified for a CHL in Texas. So I don't see how you could predict him doing this, although apparently his mother wasn't surprised.

Gun free zone obviously wouldn't work, since the theater was post as no guns and they never do in any event.

Limiting gun purchases wouldn't have helped since he had a clean record.

Limitations on "assault rifles" wouldn't have worked since he also had a shotgun and handgun with him.

Limiting magazine size wouldn't have worked since he had prepared by bringing 3 guns with him.

And if you had a complete gun ban, given the way he apparently wired his apartment with bombs, he probably would have resorted to bombs.

The police response was about as fast as you could want one and a half minutes but the police who arrived couldn't get into the theater. And even if they did, they would have had most of the same problems a CHL would have had.

So concealed carry, gun control and fast police response all would have failed or did fail.

Frankly given this guy, his planning and execution, I am not sure anything could be done to produce any better result.

Have I left anything out? Kind of disturbing.