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When James Huberty opened up at the San Ysidro McDonalds nearly 30 years ago, it took San Diego SWAT 77 minutes to get there, get organized, and get a SWAT sniper to put a stop to it. Huberty killed 21 and wounded 19, with an Uzi, a pistol and a shotgun.

The scene is about a mile and a half north of the border and even in those days, traffic would make it hard to get down there quickly. I do not criticize SDPD for the response time. The first PD officer got there in about 7 minutes and was engaged in a gun battle upon arrival. The first SWAT officers arrived in 35 minutes, but the then SWAT commander, just retired SD Mayor Jerry Sanders, took longer and countermanded a shoot order until he arrived. Who's to say what could have been better if different.

Anyway, I have always wished, and still do, that a CHL holder was in the restaurant that day. That might have made all the difference in the world.

A suit was filed by survivors and next of kin against McDonalds and franchisees, but the case was dismissed on a motion for summary judgment, affirmed on appeal, that McDonald's or any other business has no duty of care to protect patrons from an unforeseeable assault by a murderous madman; and plaintiffs could not prove causation because the standard reasonable measures normally used by restaurants to deter criminals, like guards and closed-circuit television cameras, could not possibly have deterred the perpetrator (who did not care about his own survival). Lopez v. McDonald's Corp. 193 Cal.App.3rd 495 (1987)