There are a few assumptions to be addressed. First, although they may not be dressed in easily identified terrorist uniforms, they will be the ones killing victims. Second, they will likely be using semi-automatic rifles.

Since the only mall I go to that has a Dillard's is in Flagstaff, I would be carrying my Glock 32 and an extra high cap magazine. I would use cover or at least concealment and start firing at the longest range that I am comfortable with. I would be shooting for the lower abdomen. There are a lot of structures there to be disrupted and if you get a little low, a leg shot isn't too bad, especially if you hit a bone. Oh, the reason? Body armor. The possibility of an over penetration and injury of a bystander is unlikely since anyone behind the shooter(s) is very likely dead or dying.

Men have been known to fight on for minutes, after a heart shot, but if you take away the skeletal structure by smashing a hip joint, a femur or any part of the pelvic girdle, you still have an active shooter, but not a mobile active shooter. Of course if you can make a head shot, all the better.

Now for a reality check. If you have never killed anything more than an insect or spider, I recommend you think long and hard about whether you can shoot a human being. I have killed both domestic and wild animals and never had a problem with freezing or missing the target. Yes, I'm aware that white tail deer don't shoot back.

Next: Clint is right about response times for law enforcement arrival. There is a sheriff's substation right across the street from the east side of the Lakewood mall and if there were a unit in the parking lot of the station with a deputy in the car with the engine running, it would still take up to two minutes for him/her to get to the stores on the west side of the mall. SWAT teams consist of patrol officers who are trained up for the team and are spread throughout the whole patrol area: they are not all in one place waiting to be called out and they are not even geared up in full battle rattle. Oh, and the other thing, SWAT is going to contain the situation not go in on a search and destroy mission.

I have walked Shore Patrol in a dozen European cities, and a couple in Asia, I was a Brig chaser in Philadelphia, a prisoner escort in Long Beach, an armed sentry both ashore and afloat, I have disarmed drunks and been punched in the face, I walked down a long dark street in Beirut, Lebanon with a local cop on each side of me, who never took their hands off their sub-machine guns until we returned to the police station.

My enlistment had an expiration date, my oath didn't.

Dead Left Knife Guy, you do your best to keep your family safe and if I'm there, I'll do everything I can to keep you and your family alive.

my 26 year old daughter and I got our CC together.  She has a Ruger 9MM and I have a Ruger 22.  It was fun to do together.  We go shooting together as frequently as possible.  I can usually hit the side of the barn, while she can put 5 rounds in a 1 inch grouping around the bulls-eye.

My daughter runs miles, can chin up, does an exercise routine daily, etc.  She believes she has a right to carry and fights her mother over it all the time.  If I was a citizen in the same room with her and terrorists I would only marginally fear the terrorists more.

I have M.S. and can barely move from my chair.  My wife and daughter would be trying to defend me.  In my younger days, I would have jumped in and fought.  Now I don't carry anything more dangerous than a switchblade.

to my point of this post, She or my younger self wouldn't freeze, but I know we wouldn't do the right thing.  we would have just gotten in and either quickly be killed, fire on the wrong person or in general just muck things up.  we don't have active target response training, we don't have any markings that we are not a terrorist and in our nervous response would probably choose the wrong targets.  But I would have done it and she will do it, lord forgive us.

I am older and incapacitated now.  I think differently.  My wife doesn't even want me handling my knives in fear I will hurt myself.

no matter how I think this out I can't come up with a good response for me or other CC people wanting to do the right thing.  since we have 350 million people in our country and about 300 or so people have been killed in terrorist (both ISIS and home grown), the odds that it will happen to us is very, very slim. 

I am putting my money on the government finding them before they act.  Unfortunately they will use a sledge hammer to swat a fly, and our personal freedoms in the process.  But what to do?

John,

I like your response.  Life does change us.  I am rather a hermit, on the top of a mountain in Georgia.  I go to a few knife shows a year but mostly, I don't go past downtown.  I do not go anywhere else that anyone would think a target, LOL, have not been in a mall in over 5 years.  If We were going to be attacked it would be more likely that it would happen at home if the country fell apart.  That, I could defend with more confidence than I could at a mall