Actually, here in VA we are allowed to carry concealed in establishments serving alcohol so long as we do not drink any. Open carry here you are allowed to drink, but not to inebiration.
Also, provided there are no signs, we are allowed to carry in a movie theatre, or any other public establishment.
Same here, I can and am supposed to carry in the movie theaters near my home. Most of those other places he named have armed guards as well.
I understood where you were coming from in your post, Boz and I wasn't getting on your case. That was not my intent. The FOF training, even a little bit put one in a better position to understand what is going to happen when the 'rush' starts and how to handle it. I'd wager that, with the exception of the military personnel, no one else in the theater has an inkling of what FOF is let alone how to handle a FOF situation. YOu're average CCer with a fair amount of range time might be able to hit that paper target hanging still at the end of the firing line, but thrust them into this situation and my belief is that most would choke, possibly myself included. I like to believe that all the training I've done would prevent me from becoming a speed bump in the isle way but until it happens, no one can be sure.
I'm with you on what to do. My first reaction is to save me and mine by fast egress, but if the opportunity presents itself, I'm leaving with an empty magazine. And If I am lucky enough to put him down, that's when my tactic would change.
On another note. A lot of people are saying that he would have been such and easy target because he was back lit. The last time I went to a theater and saw someone 'back lit' I couldn't tell who or what they were and I was visually distracted by what was on the big screen. In my 'guestimate' he would have been just a dark figure 'down front' until the first grenade went off.
Thanks for the feed back Boz.
This is not directed only at you Walt, but at the majority that have been posting in the past couple pages. Hindsight is 20/20. There is a lot of posts online saying, "Why would you have gotten involved? He was wearing body armor so you couldn't do anything." On that night, in that dark room, no one knew he was wearing anything that was bullet proof. No one would have known unless they put shots COM and the criminal either got back up, or didn't fall down and kept going. The fact he was armored doesn't matter until now, after the fact, we can look back on it. To those victims, he was just a guy that had guns and he was shooting at them. It's very unfair to those that died to say they made the wrong decision, as I would assume the majority of those that died were dead before they could put the big picture together. There is no right or wrong decision in cases like this, as 200+ different people made 200+ different decisions.
Should people get FOF training? Yes. That has nothing to do with what people should have done at that premiere though. No one here (or anywhere that wasn't in that theater) should be saying that another person should or should not get involved because they do or do not have the training when it's not their OWN life on the line. If they have the training, it's up to that person whether or not they want to fight back. If they don't have the training, it's up to that person whether or not they want to fight back. That's it. I agree there is a lot to learn from this horrific incident, but like others have said, we can train and learn all we want, we still do not know exactly how we would react in that exact situation (which will be different in the next situation this happens).
Even soldiers are known to freeze when they get into combat, that's life, that's war, it's ****ing scary.
As far as egressing with my loved ones. I brought this point up in another thread. The lay out of the majority (if not all) the theaters I have gone to are horrible. I never thought about it till yesterday. To egress with loved ones would mean you would have to run 2/3 of the way forward, towards the killer, before making a 180 turn go for an exit. I get to make my decision now, since we have the knowledge of a well planned theater attack, that fighting may be the best option in this case. Anything different would make this outcome different. I do believe, to my core, that if more people had been carrying and made the decision to fight back, the outcome would be different in a better way. We will never know, but I have to believe that. I hope theaters realize the need to rethink the layout of their design, and perhaps renovate to add new exits to allow for faster egress in more directions for any emergency (fire, bomb, gunman, etc).
