Discussion: Does Aurora Massacre Change Our View of Soft Targets?

Editor's note: Cupertino suffered its own mass shooting Oct. 5, 2011, when Shareef Allman, a quarry worker, opened fire at Lehigh Southwest Cement, killing three, injuring a half-dozen more and terrifying an entire region when he hid out in a Sunnyvale neighborhood. Does this Aurora incident stir up those fears? The following opinion was written by a Patch colleague in Southern California. Please share your thoughts with us here in the Comments section and take our poll.

At least 12 dead and dozens injured, several seriously.

One gunman and one crowded theater.

The specter of copycats.

Californians will awake Friday morning to live shots coming from Aurora, Colorado, where James Holmes, a young gunman reportedly wearing a gas mask and a bulletproof vest, opened fire during a midnight showing of Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, a movie expected to gross $200 million this weekend.

The number of deaths and injured isn't confirmed. As information become available the figures could change up or down. But no matter what the final numbers are, there is one definitive: It's a tragedy.

Since the September 11 terror attacks of 2001, Americans have been on various levels of alert, but anyone with an ounce of cynicism has recognized that movie theaters, malls and school events—so-called soft targets because they are gathering locations with little security—are ripe for domestic terror or deranged madmen.

The Friday morning massacre at the Century 16 in Aurora took place 19 miles and 13 years from Columbine High, but it’s the kind of tragedy that can open up wounds in every region in America.

Including California.

• A little more than nine months ago then hiding out for a day before turning his own gun on himself.
• Seal Beach is only nine months removed from the in which eight people were killed and one injured.
• The McDonald’s massacre in 1984 resulted in 21 killed and 19 injured outside of San Diego.
• The in 1976 ended with seven dead and two injured.

All such events—not just the local ones—remind us of just how vulnerable we are.

And it brings with it the specter of copycats who think they can do it just a little better—or bigger.  

Do we keep the status quo and prove that we haven’t been beaten, or do we make changes because we want to see next year, want to see our kids get married and our grandkids grow up?

The incident Friday morning is likely to start a discussion—a very real, very serious discussion—about soft targets.

Let's start it here.

Should metal detectors become as standard as popcorn machines at movie theaters? Should there be armed security, or will a thick dude in a yellow jacket be enough to stop someone carrying a gun who wants to get in with or without a ticket? Will there be no more dress-up at the theater, which apparently allowed the Aurora gunman to enter with a handgun, a rifle, a gas canister and a gas mask?

What do you think this morning in light of Aurora, the newest name in tragedy? 

Will you let your kids head to the AMC theater at Vallco to see the film, or will you think twice?