Classes are not necessary to turn you into a hero, only guts and practice are needed. If you can shoot straight, which most people with a permit can, then you are capable of being useful in a situation like this. This is the clearest scenario where a gun would be helpful. A one on one robbery where the other person is pointing a gun at you is a situation in which a gun is less useful in my opinion, because it will be hard to draw and use your gun without being shot yourself. In this mass shooting situation though, there were plenty of people who could have acted to stop this shooting with the element of surprise with relatively little risk to themselves or other innocent bystanders. I saw camera pictures of the shooter from the back taken by students, if they were holding a gun instead of a camera he would have been dead.

And yes, if you die trying to save yourself or others that is your own damn decision. At least you would have had a chance, unlike the second person to die in this shooting who was unarmed.

It seems to me that TV and movies have fucked with YOUR head. You, and people like you, seem to imagine a long, drawn out shootout where multiple people get involved and there is chaos and confusion, and CCers shooting each other and being shot by cops, and killing innocent people. That isn't how shootings work, they are lightning fast and over very quickly. Someone pulls their gun, perhaps someone who was in a window with a good view of the shooter, and puts two in his chest and the story is over.