Gunfire echoing through the school grounds? Parents are terrified. Children no longer noticed.

The gunshots rang out at 8:13 a.m. and echoed across the high school football field and high school yard. They continued for 49 minutes without a break: an AR-15-style rifle, with .223-caliber bullets, tearing at 94 decibels through a community that didn’t even pause to wonder if a disaster was unfolding on the schools.

It was just a typical morning in Cranston, RI, where more than 2,000 children attend school within 500 yards of a police shooting range. There, local police officers hone their weapons skills, sometimes until half past seven in the evening.

Some days they shoot Glock pistols, just like the guns used in the mass shootings at Virginia Tech, Charleston Church and Thousand Oaks, California. Other days they use AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles, similar to the rifles used in the murders in Newtown, Connecticut; Las Vegas; Parkland, FL; Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas.

Many parents have tried unsuccessfully to move the range to a more secluded area or shut it down to block out the disturbing sounds. They have written letters in support of one bill in the state legislature that would ban outdoor shooting ranges within a mile of schools. But police opposed the legislation and the bill is now ‘on hold for further investigation’.

“This facility is necessary to train and qualify all department members with the weapons they carry to fulfill the mission of protecting the public,” said Col. Michael Winquist, chief of police.

Excessive noise – even in general – is disruptive to the health and well-being of children, research shows, and medical experts say the sound of gunshots, which could trigger a fight-or-flight response, could be even worse .

But while many students say they remember initially being deeply disturbed by the gunfire — freezing, ducking under desks — they are now exhibiting what public health experts say could be a potentially more dangerous response: desensitization.

“I remember thinking, ‘We shouldn’t get used to this,’” said Valentina Pasquariello, who graduated in June. “But it was at the point where you have to get used to it – you have no choice.”

Sara Johnson, a professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who has studied how firearms and other chronic stressors affect children’s development, said the students “do mental gymnastics to feel safe in those types of environments, and to feel at peace.” to join. .”

Although the situation in Cranston is unique, Dr. Johnson and others that this is a reflection of a country where the threat of gun violence has affected the daily lives of schoolchildren.

“Whether or not you go to school across from a shooting range,” said Dr. Johnson, “you are being asked to meet the challenges of growing up in an environment with built-in weapons.”

Morning: psychology class

One morning last month, the first explosions of the day came as Maranda Carline, 17, a high school student, was in first period psychology class, snacking on Skittles and learning how childhood trauma can shape a person’s development. can affect the long term. The sound of 50 bullets stirred Miranda again as she walked outside to her next class at 9:01 a.m.; another 50 arrived at 10:56 a.m., as she rushed to complete an essay on prohibition for her midterm history.

Maranda has long memorized the steps of active shooter training, as routine as solving an algebra equation: barricade the door. Hide in the corner. If necessary, use scissors and throw away trash cans, chairs or whatever you can find.

But her mother, Carmen Carline, had no confidence that Maranda would follow these steps in a real situation, for the simple reason that she wouldn’t know it was real.

“If a gunman shows up at my child’s school and they hear the bullets, and no one even looks up — no one has that healthy fear that drives you to seek safety — that’s what I’m afraid of,” she said. down in tears.

When asked if she found the gunfire distracting, Miranda paused for a moment and then said, “It’s quite comforting, I think, because it means there are police around.”

Her mother intervened: “That’s how they sell it to the kids.”

Afternoon: Lunch block

Amid the day’s explosions, Cranston, a town of about 80,000, embodied New England’s melodious autumn: leaves tumbling over driveways, basketballs drumming on the sidewalk of cul-de-sacs; humming engines in a Dunkin’ drive-through line.

Decades ago, residents said, gunfire from the shooting range was sporadic and quieter, like popcorn popping in the distance, as local officers learned to use handguns. But police departments grew, and so did the number of federal agencies and other groups using the outreach. This also applied to the types of weapons – and therefore also to the sound.

During the Covid pandemic, adults who had commuted to work stayed home all day and couldn’t believe what they were hearing. In 2021, the range became a source of excitement. A petition for “peace and silence” was circulating.

Residents in September 2022 went to the city council with stories: the new art teacher who sits on his haunches and calls for a lockdown; visiting athletes at a circuit for invitation “on the lawn”; a resident stepping on a used 9 millimeter housing in front of the high school.

One council member, Jessica Marino, said tradition should take precedence: “I really believe the site is in the right location because it has been there for a long time,” she said.

Another council member at the time, Matthew Reilly, a former student of the middle and high schools, said, “It was never a traumatic situation. My friends and I, and I can only speak from personal experience, never really influenced us.”

The police training academy applied for $1.6 million through the American Rescue Plan to demarcate the area, but the grant was denied.

The department said it had reduced the number of outside groups using the range — ending agreements with airport police and federal agencies such as the FBI — and that it had replaced sound-absorbing panels and added berms and shrubs to to dampen the noise.

“These are our final efforts,” the department’s second-in-command, Maj. Todd Patalano, wrote to the mayor and police chief in a February 2023 email obtained by The Times. “We will not be making any further adjustments at this time.”

Afternoon: football training

For Antonella Pasquariello, a mother of three, a memory of school pick-up time plays like a slow-motion movie in her mind: She pulled up in her car, rolled down her window and watched “cute little kids stroll out of the school . , without flinching, as the sound of artillery struck the building.

She glanced at the bus lines and tennis courts to “make sure no bodies were falling.”

Haunted by the experience, she wrote a letter to the superintendent asking why the shooting couldn’t be banned during school hours. She was referred to the mayor, who responded that it would “take time and funding.”

Ms. Pasquariello was leashing her goldendoodle, Cleo, for a walk when shooting resumed at 12:03 p.m. She listened for sirens: no sirens, no school shooting, she said. They erupted again at 2:47 p.m., when the junior varsity Falcons headed to the football field for practice, and then at 3:21 p.m., when elementary school children stepped off their buses.

When Mrs. Pasquariello’s youngest son, August, came home from school, she asked him about the gunshots. He said he heard nothing.

Evening: bedtime routine

At dusk, Jose Giusti watched his six-year-old Gianna practice cartwheels amid a cacophony of bullets.

Mr. Giusti works for the City of Providence Permitting Department, which enforces noise ordinances. He and his wife Alyssa know that studies show that children who live in noisy environments have higher blood pressure, elevated cortisol levels and hyperactivity. So far Gianna seems fine.

When it was time for bed, Gianna shuffled around in her cheetah pajamas and unicorn earphones. Then her parents put her to sleep using a white noise machine to block out the sound of the gunfire.

Audio produced by Adrienne Hurst.