For all of you out there who may be thinking, like Congressman Gohmert, that had one or more of the members of the audience for The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado been armed that he would have been able to successfully neutralize the attack, I would like to remind you of this:
On March 21, 1981, Ronald Reagan, The President of the United States, was shot while surrounded by the best trained bodyguards on planet Earth, all of whom were armed with the very best weaponry and other equipment available. The shooter, John Hinckley, Jr., was not fired at. In fact, he got punched in the head and pulled to the ground by Alfred Antenucci, a Cleveland, Ohio, labor official, who happened to be standing near to Hinckley when he opened fire.
My point, and I say this as a supporter of the right to keep and bear arms, is that other people with guns don't necessarily equal stopping the bad guy or preventing loss of like, The Secret Service didn't open fire on Hinckley because they were in a crowd and they considered the risk of hitting innocent civilians to be too great. Again, these are some of the best trained marksmen on the planet and they think taking shots in that situation is too big of a risk. Why then do these people assume that Joe Citizen should take risks that vastly more qualified individuals would refuse to take and that said risk would pay off?
The sad truth we must all realize is that there is no way to prevent this from happening. No one could have predicted that a madman would shoot up a movie premiere. Or that a kid would shoot up his university, or a high school. There are the acts of madmen. Banning guns wouldn't have stopped it, and armed citizens in the theatre weren't likely to have stopped it either. We don't want to admit this because it's a scary truth. But remember that even though the news coverage will be constant and playing up the fear, the statistical likelihood of being caught in a shooting ...
While that is true, it doesn't change the fact that the President routinely travels with a group of well-armed bodyguards. They may choose to tackle an attacker and shield the President with their own bodies, but they are armed because there will still be a high likelihood of having to return fire.
One of the most convincing training episodes I have ever participated in was a mock ambush. It only took about ten seconds for the ambushers to empty their weapons into a target and leave the area. The soldiers under attack were sitting in a truck and never got off a shot.
The Hinckley attack on Reagan and the attack in Aurora share those same aspects of ambush. The attacked don't know when or where the attack will take place or who the attacker will be. The best that any of them can do is be prepared as possible to respond to the attack. The theater audience in Aurora should have been no less armed that Reagan's Secret Service detail.