Yeah, the theater shooting is a very bad situation. I think of the theater I frequent. There are emergency exits but they're at the front, close to the regular exit. It would be pretty easy for a shooter to cover the whole theater and block egress. Smoke could work in my favor; if I can't see he can't either. Theater chairs are no cover at all but they are concealment, and could provide a rest to steady a pistol. In Aurora the shooter had an M&P15, and going against an AR in the hands of a skilled user with a sidearm is not a good situation, at all! Worse yet he had body armor that capable of defeating pistol rounds.

Every time I'm at my local multiplex I have a Surefire E1B and a handgun, usually my HK P30S or HK VP9, and both wear tritium night sights. With either of those guns I'm probably going have a very high percentage chance of a head shot within 50 feet and I regularly practice out to 25 yards with them.

IMOHO the only kind of fight you can't win is the one where you give up. Confronting an adversary armed with a powerful rifle isn't easy but it's not impossible. A ways back a USAF bike MP engaged an active shooter armed with an AK-47; the shooter had already killed a few people when the officer reached him. He engaged at a distance of 60 yards, firing four rounds from his Beretta M9, killing the perp. Very recently a Canadian RCMP officer killed an active shooter with one shot from his handgun at a distance of 105 yards, while holding the reins of some horses in the other hand!

When the moment comes you have to be as prepared at you can be. Just like Doug says of the PSP, if it's not on you it can't save you. If you don't regularly CCW and your gun isn't on you that's an issue (and I do understand it's not possible to legally carry everywhere and I don't advocate breaking the law). The first rule of gunfighting is have a gun! Once #1 is taken care of then hopefully that gun is adequate to the task since all you've got is what you brung. You make a good point about little pistols; we carry small guns because they're easy to carry, not because they're effective or easy to shoot. CCW is a numbers game. Your odds of needing a gun are low. If you ever need to draw it you may not need to fire. If you need to fire then odds are good that they're retreat. It's like the old saying- in a bacon, egg and cheese sandwhich the chicken and the cow are involved but the pig is committed! Predators seldom fight to the death.

But of course, the most unlikely thing will still happen eventually. The Aurora shooter and the Charlie Hebdo terrorists goal was to kill. And unlike most such attacks they weren't suicide attacks; they all planned to survive.

While you almost always have some chance, albeit a slim one, some situations are pretty much like the "Kobayashi Maru". There might not be a solution that allows you to "win" every time. Victory may have to be redefined. Can you alter the shooter's plan, saving others? Kill or disable at least one of them potentially lowering the body count? Hard to say.

I think one needs to be aware when planning their day. I try avoid crowded places due to not liking crowds but if you look at a place like an active shooter would then some places appear to be tempting targets. Those are places to avoid if you can. If you can't then be aware of your surroundings.

If you're into guns or at least open to the idea of them, consider CCW. Train as much as you can.

The good new as I see it is that, despite the media circus, events like this are still pretty rare. And I don't expect mass terror attacks on US soil to become commonplace overnight. Prepared and equipped to survive is good, paranoid is not!