Theater massacre: Why didn't anybody shoot back?

Editor,

Another madman in our midst, more innocent people senselessly murdered. I am filled with sadness beyond description, and my deepest sympathies go out to the victims and their families and loved ones. Ultimately, however, when our shock and despair is less sharp and the pain less paralyzing, we must ask ourselves, as a society, how we have come to be so defenseless, so ill-equipped and unprepared to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the murderous monsters that live and walk among us. Why, out of a gathering of hundreds, no one could shoot back?