....that someone ought to have anticipated and protected against something that never would have occurred to any rational person.
Don't assume that these theatres run at enormous profit margins because they don't. Unless having people open those emergency exit doors when they shouldn't was a significant problem for the theatre, things like silent alarms and security cameras would have seemed to be unnecessary expenses. And security cameras in particular wouldn't have been of any use in a situation like this unless they had someone sitting and watching them the entire time that the theatre was open. In reality, most of those cameras in most places only run to tape which gets reviewed periodically or even only after something happens.
Or do you suppose that a theatre owner should have said to him/herself "Gee, maybe some night some guy will park a car full of weaponry out in back of the building and then walk around the front, purchase a ticket, go in and sit down, then get up and go out the emergency exit, propping it open, put on full body armor, gather his guns and tear gas canisters and then come back in and shoot the place up. Maybe I should pay for alarms and cameras and a herd of security guards just in case that happens........sometime."? Welcome to the $97.50 movie ticket (add $26 if you want popcorn)!
The fact of the matter is that we can't anticipate and prevent every horrible thing that some nutcase or just plain evil person might do. We just can't. I understand wanting to find a way to make everything safe and idyllic, but blaming others for not protecting us from things that we ourselves would never dream up is totally unreasonable. It would make as much sense to blame the moviegoers for patronizing a theatre that wasn't set-up like an armed fortress.
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