This essay is featured in Boston Review’s Winter 2019 issue Left Elsewhere: Finding the Future in Radical Rural America.
“I’m a teacher,” I mumble under my breath. The instructor yells another command, and we collectively pull our triggers, setting off an angry crackle of handgun fire. Twenty-three paper intruders recoil quicker than senses can register. The entire scene has the atmosphere of sport; the targets do not bleed or shoot back. Squinting through the sun’s glare, I look for the impact point, the void that would bleed the life from my hypothetical foe.
After the Newtown shooting, parents demanded to know how we would protect their children; locked doors and security cameras were not enough.
“This person is killing your students!” an instructor berates, fuming at our inadequacy.
The humanoid targets are faceless, sexless, standing over six feet tall. An hour before, the instructors informed us that most school shooters are male students. But few students, even high school males, are this tall. On the range this comparison is unspeakable, but I can’t shake the thought: we are being trained for the contingency that we have to kill a student.
“Fire!” the instructor yells again. The barrage continues.