Let's cut through the bullshit, okay? If some one in the crowd had a gun and was accurate and willing to shoot then yes, it would have been a good thing that night. Some people would have been saved. I wish there was some one in that particular theater who had a gun. Anyone arguing otherwise is kidding themselves.
The issue, though, is that a culture wherein people habitually carry around guns to movie theaters and churches and college campuses and wherever a mass murder might next occur is probably more dangerous and definitely makes people (myself included) uneasy. I'm trying to imagine how that society might look, and I'm sure people like Heinballz and myself have two very different visions.
In my opinion I think it's extremely unhealthy for a society that encourages a sort of day-to-day individual quasi-brinksmanship/mutually assured destruction.
You should vacation to Montana or Wyoming, then form an informed an opinion.
Not a bad idea. Those places are good cross-sections of our society.
Well they're just the other side. For every Chicago or Baltimore there is a Helena, MT or a Cody, WY. IMO, KS/Kansas City are a good middle ground between those two cultures. I will say I've never felt unsafe when I vacation up there, aside from maybe unintentionally (or intentionally) insulting some bar patron. Those are places where you can still get decked and they don't call the cops. Just take your licks and GTFO.
Anyway, people up there carry for different reasons than someone in Aurora would. I'm not saying it's safer up there because people carry guns; but it's probably safer because there aren't crazy people like in high density population areas.
You know they measure for simple factors like population density, right?
#1, Mississippi
Gun deaths per 100,000: 18.3
#2, Arizona
Gun deaths per 100,000: 15
#3, Alaska
Gun deaths per 100,000: 17.6
#4, Arkansas
Gun deaths per 100,000: 15.1
#5, Louisiana
Gun deaths per 100,000: 19.9
#6, New Mexico
Gun deaths per 100,000: 15
#7, Alabama
Gun deaths per 100,000: 17.6
Permissive gun laws: 27th out of 50
#8, Nevada
Gun deaths per 100,000: 16.2
#9, Montana Gun deaths per 100,000: 14.5
#10, Wyoming Gun deaths per 100,000: 14.5
#21, Kansas
Gun deaths per 100,000: 10.5
#40, California Gun deaths per 100,000: 9
#45, New York Gun deaths per 100,000: 5.1
#46, New Jersey
Gun deaths per 100,000: 5.2