The Assassination of Fun

When discussing the impact gun culture has on American students, we often raise the question of what “school shooter drills” do to the average teen’s psyche. While they can be a source of distress, the biannual drills that previously marked the creeping influence of firearms into our lives are now par for the course. The real and ultimately more insidious concern is gun culture’s ability to control the social activities we engage in outside of school. Recently, LHS seniors have learned that relatively harmless fun—in an era of paranoid hyper-vigilance—can be prohibited.

Senior Assassins, the popular game of water-gun tag, was banned on school property at the end of April. In a joint email from the administration and the Littleton Police Department resource officer, parents were encouraged to talk to their kids and prevent them from partaking in the game. The school is not permitted to dictate what legal activities the students engage in outside of school hours. It would not be a stretch to say that their aim was to put an end to Senior Assassins.

This was, of course, a partially justifiable ban. The local police department had already been made aware of students walking around town with water guns, and the measures they take to ensure our safety are admirable and appreciated.

The reaction of the police is unsurprising due to the public dismay earlier this year when the town discovered that the Mill building on the Common houses over 80 individual gun dealerships. The Boston Globe reported that it is the largest concentration of licensed sellers in the entire country, and remains so at the date of this publication. It is particularly notable that—before the town voted to pass a zoning bylaw that limited their operation—the dealers were selling dismantled AR-15 parts to be re-assembled by the buyer, directly flouting Massachusetts’ ban on assault weapons.

In the Boston Globe article, Littleton Chief of Police Matthew Pinard noted that “[The majority of Mill dealers are there] to skirt the law so that they can possess and shoot weapons that are on the weapons ban”. Since the Globe reported on this in September, at least one Mill dealer has been federally charged with supplying weapons to an unlicensed man, who was later involved in a shooting near Hyde Park. CBSNews Boston reported that, during a select board meeting, “Police Chief Matthew Pinard said he did not see anything illegal or dangerous about [the dealers]”. Ironically, more action has been taken in Littleton to ban toy water weaponry than real guns.

The police department in a small town now known for its large gun dealership is understandably cautious, particularly when students are involved. The prospect of children running around with water pistols is alarming to a town already frightened by the presence of the Mill dealers. Gone, certainly, are the days when kids possessed airsoft guns and BB rifles; even water guns, despite being marked with bright colours, are now deemed dangerously similar to real weapons.

As a community, we are subjecting the younger generation to an unprecedented level of fear. The Mill is located 2.7 miles from the high school and 1.5 miles from the middle school and Russell Street. Students who are aware of the Mill’s proximity are frightened of a potential shooting. Students who participate in Senior Assassins may now be afraid—especially after a spate of extreme attacks in other states—of having their water pistol mistaken for a real gun and potentially shot by a neighbour or the police themselves. 

Some schools have gone farther than Littleton in condemning Senior Assassins. North Attleboro’s principal criticised students for taking part, arguing that “[They] could be perceived as having no credibility [in their anti-gun-violence activism] because [they’re] replicating a shooting, even if it’s with something as small as shooting a water gun”. This produced immense backlash, as indignant students felt insulted by the implication that they could not tell the difference between their own personal fun and the gun violence they had never wanted to be affected by in the first place. 

Bishop’s School’s student-run newspaper reported that “Seniors were encouraged to use water squirters that are not modelled after guns”, highlighting that if guns were not accessible to the general public, water pistols would not provoke fear. The consequence of rampant gun culture is students feeling like they are exacerbating the violence that weapons are inflicting upon their generation.

At a recent Littleton School Committee meeting, a parent of an LPS student suggested the town ought to employ more school resource officers as a response to the national reports of gun violence. Many students at LHS have noted that the presence of a firearm in a school building, regardless of who possesses it, makes them uncomfortable. Generally, students do not believe that more guns in schools provide a long-term solution or even a good temporary measure for the threat of school shootings.

As a culture, we are quick to assign blame to students, labelling their activities as reckless, unintellectual, and—to put it bluntly—a waste of time. When a phenomenon like Senior Assassins appears, we are quick to hone in on individual student missteps in order to condemn the entire activity. Parents, I imagine, have witnessed the events of LHS’s Senior Assassins game and thought something along the lines of: “What did those kids think would happen, wandering around town with water guns?”

Instead of placing the blame on the students—who always have and always will participate in mindless, silly activities—we ought to direct our criticism towards the gun culture in this country. No student partaking in what is essentially a mass-coordinated game of tag expects the police to be called on them. No student engaging in this activity considers it a dangerous, reckless venture, because it isn’t. Kids have been water-gun fighting since the invention of the device in 1896. Regardless of your thoughts on the value of Senior Assassins, it is a game of tag—an innocent pastime that students deserve to partake in—and the real villain is the pervasive fear of guns that has led us to banning it.

Sources

Ryley, Sarah L, and Andrew Brinker. “At an Old Mill in Littleton, Gun Dealers Openly Defy Maura Healey's Assault Weapon Decrees - The Boston Globe.” BostonGlobe.com, The Boston Globe, 10 Sept. 2022, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/09/10/metro/an-old-mill-littleton-gun-dealers-openly-defy-maura-healeys-assault-weapon-decrees/. 

(To bypass paywall, use this link: https://archive.ph/mmn0I#selection-3699.0-3703.170)

Canne, Kayla. “North Attleboro School Officials Say Student Tradition of 'Senior Assassin' Game Inappropriate, Dangerous in Age of Parkland.” The Sun Chronicle, The Sun Chronicle, 28 Apr. 2018, https://www.thesunchronicle.com/news/local_news/north-attleboro-school-officials-say-student-tradition-of-senior-assassin-game-inappropriate-dangerous-in-age/article_c45e8109-a78e-5b81-b47b-400413dc0768.html#:~:text=NORTH%20ATTLEBORO%20%E2%80%94%20Local%20school%20officials,shootings%20are%20already%20so%20prevalent. 

“Firearms Dealer from Controversial Littleton Gun Shop Cluster Facing Federal Charges.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 19 Jan. 2023, https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/cory-daigle-firearms-dealer-littleton-massachusetts-gun-shop-cluster-federal-charges/. 

“Water Gun.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Mar. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_gun.