So... in the last 20 years according to the list above we have:

Russia - 1
UK - 1
Spain - 1
Switzerland - 1
France - 1
Croatia - 1

Only Switzerland is even in the top 10 of countries with per capita gun ownership in the world. Russia and Italy are close to the bottom even.

I appreciate the commentary of the soldiers in the thread, though I'm not myself in favor of conceal/carry or of unconcealed weapons in public spaces. It would be interesting if more people in American society had tactical training with these sorts of things, though I would only imagine that any kind of mandatory training would cause more problems than good.

I'm personally more interested in why places like this theater are no-carry areas. Presumably, someone somewhere saw a public safety issue that outweighed both constitutional rights and other public safety issues. It'll be curious to see if these policies change in light of this tragedy, and if they change in a way that is reasoned and sensible versus based in emotion.

I find this heart-wrenching. I don't digest mainstream news, so my sum-total experience of this has been hearing this thread arguing about the topic. To realize more strongly that there are a great number of people who have lost men, women, and children in their lives is potent. I couldn't imagine moving on after failing to save my girlfriend, or being a woman whose boyfriend died saving my life. How do you recover from that?

And that it happened while sitting down to a blockbuster.... it's horrifying.

Edit: Working a bit in the film industry, my heart also goes out to the cast and crew of the movie. First Heath Ledger and now this? Those people must be reeling.

Theatres are not legal 'no carry zones' in most states that I'm aware of. Rather the theatre's themselves have posted signage saying 'no firearms allowed'. Which I'm sure is far more motivated out of insurance concerns than any particular desire for the moviegoers well being.

I just ignore the signs and move on with life.

I like this idea, but we'd need to filter out the psychos. That part could get... tricky.

They could have been. I could have. I'm sure Phuse could have been, too. Odds are pretty good that one of us who knows what we're doing would have been. Ten to thirty seconds is all the time in the world in a situation like this.

Yeah, see, that's not an apology. That's just being passive aggressive. Why even bother typing it up? If you woulda left off at telling me what you meant by it, that would have been perfectly fine. No offense meant, none taken. When you go that extra mile, though...

And what consequences are those, exactly? I'm familiar with them, but I'd like to hear which consequences are stopping you from firearm ownership.
I assume you're someplace where it's legal. I don't advocate law-breaking - just moving someplace where firearms are legal.

I'm not assuming a 100% chance of success. I'm assuming that even if I wildly miss my first shot and tag a civilian, my second shot will hit. The casualties will be lower than if he were allowed to continue unopposed. It's the grim math of war. Sometimes you need to risk the few for the good of the many.

These firefights tend to involve untrained combatants against trained fighters. The untrained combatants' idea of marksmanship is the ol' "Spray n' Pray". They don't care about collateral damage, because every civilian killed is somehow our fault.
See, we don't have any data for two modern Western countries going to war against each other. We have some wargames, but no wars. Western militaries tend to have just about zero civilian casualties, even in nightmare scenarios like this.

Retweet - The Aurora killer wanted to be a supervillain. I suggest we all start calling him Sideshow Bob to deny him the one thing he wanted - @DrewCurtis

You're right, because no apology was necessary. I should have left off that last line of appeasement.

To the rest of your points, there's simply no reason to go on discussing it. If you see no negative consequences to firing off in a crowded area, and state that "tagging a civilian" is an acceptable circumstance and something you could live with, surely I'm not going to change your mind, and I have no desire to.

For me, that would be unacceptable, and I feel confident that there are a lot of others who would feel the same way. We'll have to agree to disagree then, and leave it at that.

In other news a victim has just filed a lawsuit against the theater, the doctor of the defendant, and Warner Brothers.

On what grounds??

America
-We Love Our Guns
-We Will Sue the Pants Off You Over Nothing

This is why I'm saving up to move to Fiji....

linky for source

1. The theater. Karpel claims it was negligent for the theater to have an emergency door in the front that was not alarmed or guarded. It's widely believed Holmes entered the theater with a ticket, propped the emergency door open from inside, went to his car and returned with guns.

2. Holmes' doctors. Karpel says it appears Holmes was on several medications -- prescribed by one or more doctors -- at the time of the shooting and he believes the docs did not properly monitor Holmes.

3. Warner Bros. Karpel says "Dark Knight Rises" was particularly violent and Holmes mimicked some of the action. The attorney says theater goers were helpless because they thought the shooter was part of the movie. Karpel tells TMZ, "Somebody has to be responsible for the rampant violence that is shown today."