One witness reported that, "nobody stood a chance". All social correctness aside, tactically speaking a small fraction of that number would have been killed had one person in there been packing.

And I dunno know about Hales call to "show a force" by congregating in one spot is a tactically sound response to a group of gays that just got mowed down like sitting ducks.  I don't mean to be "uncivil" but protect yourself because politicians, security guards, and activists agains the NRA alike are not going to jump in front of a bullet for anyone, rather they'll just use this stuff to promote their idealistic and unrealistic agenda. If doing away with guns was gonna happen it would have happened long ago. How many of these incidents do we need to see before putting a stop to it? Imagine if instead of hearing "another [successful] mass shooting" we heard "he got a few, then he got shot down". The next shooter would think twice.