percent — go their whole career without ever firing at anyone,
and those who do describe the experience as so unimaginably
stressful that it seems reasonable to ask if firing a gun could be
the kind of experience that could cause temporary autism.
Here, for example, are excerpts of interviews that the
University of Missouri criminologist David Klinger did with
police officers for his fascinating book Into the Kill Zone. The
first is with an officer who fired on a man who was threatening
to kill his partner, Dan:
He looked up, saw me, and said, “Oh, shit.” Not like
“Oh, shit, I’m scared.” But like “Oh, shit, now here’s
somebody else I gotta kill” — real aggressive and mean.
Instead of continuing to push the gun at Dan’s head, he
started to try to bring it around on me. This all happened
real fast — in milliseconds — and at the same time, I was
bringing my gun up. Dan was still fighting with him, and
the only thought that came through my mind was “Oh, dear
God, don’t let me hit Dan.” I fired five rounds. My vision
changed as soon as I started to shoot. It went from seeing
the whole picture to just the suspect’s head. Everything else