Gene Healy, whom I had not read before:
Forty armed citizens out of 700 in the audience might have made it quite difficult for the [Chechen] terrorists to secure the [theatre] building. Sure, a lot of folks might have been killed in the firefight, but a lot more would have been able to escape in the chaos. Sixty-seven died anyway in a rescue attempt that might have gone a lot worse.
Al Gore attacked candidate Bush for signing a CCW bill in Texas that didn’t prohibit carrying guns into churches. But if Chechen methods are replicated by Al Qaeda cells here, that looks to me like a solid argument for guns in churches, bars, shopping malls, and schools.
I like to say, whenever someone brings up something like Columbine: “Gun control worked perfectly. Nobody shot back.”