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Your point is a valid one. Here in TX, if the perp is attempting to flee, and poses no immediate threat to inflict bodily harm on you or others, you cannot use deadly force to stop him. You could order him to drop the weapon, but I'm sure this happened so fast, nobody had a chance to do anything. He was probably out the door before people could react. Now if you draw on him to defend yourself and he raises the gun towards you, he's fair game. The guys who got shot probably didn't have time to defend themselves, even if they did have a gun. If the shots were fired at very close range, some kind of martial arts would have come in handy, but it sounds like this guy unloaded on them (8 shots fired). A CCW holder more than likely would not have prevented these guys from getting shot. The only thing CCW would have done to prevent this is to be a deterrent to a criminal. Unfortunately most of the time, the criminal is not thinking about himself, and has no regard for the consequences. Like I said, CCW can act as a deterrent, but it's never going to stop the crazies from doing stupid acts.

I don't know about TX, but in FL the law is different. There was a famous workplace shooting case in Miami 15 years ago. A nut rode up to an engine repair shop on a bike with a shotgun slung on his back. He killed 4 or 5 folks, slung his shotgun, got on his bike and rode away.

Some guys from another business across the street heard the shooting and saw the guy leave. They jumped in a car, got next to the man with the shotgun slung on his back, and shot him to death from their car.

This led to a lot of education on this point of the law for us. The DA said that since the guy had just used the weapon to inflict bodily harm, and still had it, he presented an immediate danger to the public even though his weapon was slung and he was riding away on a bike.

Who knows who his next victim might be? Nobody is obligated to find out. He still had the weapon, and the 2 civilians made a "good shoot" and got kudos all around, from the cops to the mayor. (They were worried at first and came up with a cock and bull "accidental discharge/warning shot" story first to cover themselves. No need. They were not even booked.)

I think the situation in Mass is the same. The perp had just used the gun, and still had it. He's fair game, because the presumption is that he could use it again at any moment to kill the next person he saw.