First there are about 22 million vets in the US and sorry but I consider us NORMAL people.

I was not passing in judgment on the people in the theater. As I stated in the post about the guy who ran off and left his kids I have been shot at and I know what panic is and how it can take over. I was only discussing the idea that there would have been no value in having someone with a little bit of training and a pistol because the situation would have made it impossible to be effective. The reasoning for why I or someone else would have little chance of being effective if we had been in there armed is flawed logic. You made the best argument for why it would be hard with trying to get a clean shot but if he is shooting a semi-automatic rifle into a crowd you might have to take a not so clean shot and yes you might even hit someone yourself that but we know he is going to kill more people if he isn’t stopped. You are right we were not there but I would guess that after a very short amount of time everyone would either be on the floor or crammed together at the exit and getting a relatively clean shot would have been possible eventually. Of course there is no guarantee but then again there never is.

I agree that the majority of the people out there might being better off just hugging the floor and hoping he doesn't hit them but the number of people out there with the training and ability to make a difference is significant and if one of them had been there and been carrying it very well could have saved several lives. I was talking more theory more than reality because to be honest I have never taken a weapon into a theater because I don't want to sit on the damn thing for three hours, they are hard little bastards, so if I had been there I would have been as helpless as everyone else but I had been there I would have been happy to know someone was returning fire and I would have liked my chances better if they had than the way things turned out.