Shooter

“He was really mad—not like in his head, but in his body. His shoulders were shaking and his hands were trembling. There was a kid in school who was taking some drug., I think it was Librium or Prozac, something. […] That was what Len went back to school for.”

Len turns to drugs anytime something causes stress or anxiety in his life. Though Myers doesn’t say that drugs caused Len to become a killer, he implies that they are one factor among several.

“[Bullying] was pretty constant. Once you became a target, they kept zeroing in on you. Did you ever see that video game where the guy tries to run across the screen, hiding behind rocks and stuff? And every time you shoot him, he stops and changes direction? If you shoot him enough times, he goes back and forth like a real jerk. That’s what it was like sometimes at Madison.”

Cameron describes the relentlessness of the bullying that both he and Len faced. This passage shows Cameron’s vulnerability. Instead of being defensive or evasive, he opens up about the hurt and powerlessness of being a victim.

“Wearing black is wearing black. Going dark is moving away from all those things that seem to get some people through the day. Getting away from symbols and all that puffed-up way of living.”

Cameron had just told Ewings about Len wearing black clothing and a black hat. He then refers to Carla “going dark” by wearing black lipstick and dark mascara. This quote explains that “going dark” means someone has decided to live outside the mainstream. In fact, all three main characters are outsiders.

“Just a few minutes of killing, and it wasn’t really a big deal. Is that what you’re saying?”

Special Agent Lash refers to the turtle shooting incident. Cameron’s description of the incident as “no big deal” (24) shows his emotional.

“It bothered me. I knew that some of the people at the range were probably racists. I knew that. They talked about being patriots and loving their country, but I knew that what they meant was loving the images they had of their country. I knew that.”

Cameron refers to the incident at the shooting range when a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was used for target practice. The quote illustrates the patriots’ racism. It also shows how much Len has him under his spell, as Cameron continues hanging out with him.

“He never mentioned Jews until one day a teacher made some remark about his not being the leading-man type. They were casting a school play and somebody said that Len should play the lead. It was sort of a joke and he didn’t like it.”

Cameron shows how quick Len is to turn on people. Len’s anti-Semitism is in line with his other activities, such as writing “88” on a church wall. Myers shows that having a Black friend does not prevent one from being bigoted.

“They’re always buying and selling weapons. They’re not like target shooters. They’re more like military people—soldiers, I guess.”

In this passage, Cameron reveals the militarized gun culture that he and Len witness and participate in at the shooting range. Len’s father introduces Cameron to a culture of men dressed in combat gear. Myers depicts a gun culture linked to racism and extreme political views.

“Cameron, I’m getting mixed signals here. On the one hand I’m getting the idea that you and Len were being bullied or pushed away from the mainstream. On the other hand I’m seeing you as a person who deliberately moves away from groups.”

Special Agent Last comments on Cameron quitting the basketball team. She points out the ambiguity of Cameron’s behavior. On one hand, Cameron and Carla seem to be outsiders by choice. On the other, being bullied by family and peers have pushed them to be so. Lash’s comment is abrasive, but it also mirrors the nuance and complexity of real life: One may “choose” to be an outsider while also being propelled by other forces.

“Besides the message that ‘God doesn’t live here’ and the sign you wrote about Jesus, there was also the number eighty-eight painted on the wall. […] you and I know it stands for ‘Heil, Hitler.’”

Lash refers to the church vandalism incident. She exposes Len’s cultlike interest in white supremacy by translating the symbol that he painted on the church wall.

“‘Hey, faggot, give me a dollar.’ Or ‘Hey Cameron, what are you looking at? Look someplace else or I’ll beat the crap out of you’—and what they’re really saying is that you’re nothing.”

This is one of several times that Cameron mentions he and Len being bullied with anti-gay slurs. In his diary, Len also mentions Brad Williams calling him anti-gay names. This is another passage where Cameron is vulnerable and opens up, revealing that the bullying made him feel like “nothing.”

“One thing I liked about Len was that he didn’t try to crawl into my pants right away. Most boys want to get you into bed before they even know your name.”

Carla may be apprehensive about sexual contact. Myers again shows the impact of abuse, in this case molestation by a family member.

“Then he says he knows about this woman artist—Kira something—she did these paintings in blood. Blood. And what he was going to do was go to school and write ‘Stop the Violence’ all over the school in his own blood.”

Len’s plan to write “Stop the Violence” in his own blood, which he eventually follows through with at the end, shows he believes himself to be a good guy. Ironically, he is perpetuating violence, not stopping it.

“But then he started slamming Carla. He called her a fool and a slut. Tulsa girl, that’s what he called her. […] Tulsa is ‘a slut,’ only spelled backward.”

Len’s treatment of Carla shows his lack of empathy. He is quick to turn on friends, as further illustrated the day of the shooting, when he turns on both Cameron and Carla and shoots at them. He also considers how his engaging in animal abuse was what caused Carla to break up with him. Though he is a victim of bullying, he is also a perpetrator.

“Mr. Gray was the proverbial ‘ticking bomb’ waiting to go off. His needs were conveniently dismissed at every stage. His reaching out for help was also ignored, and there was no coordinated concept of threat assessment.”

Special Agent Lash explains her dissent regarding the conclusions of the final report. It’s obvious she sees the final report, which exonerates school and other officials, as a whitewash. Though Lash comes across as abrasive and confrontational when interviewing Cameron, her viewpoint here seems to mirror Myers’s: Adults, in being negligent and abusive, shoulder part of the blame for the shooting.

“While no charges involving the actual homicide were filed against Cameron Porter, the investigation is deemed to be open in respect to his participation.”

The passage from the police report, included at the end of the novel, leaves readers to debate Cameron’s culpability. Cameron is a complex character; on one hand, he vandalized the church with Len and knew Len was going to do something devious at the school, though not to what extent. On the other, he pulled the fire alarm, which probably saved many lives.

“I told her I didn’t have any trouble keeping my thoughts together. I just let them run through my head, scurrying like little rats wherever they want and me listening to their squealing their little rat songs […]”

This passage from Len’s diary exposes his chaotic mindset. The fact that he refers to his own thoughts as “rats” also reveals his low self-esteem. He seems to celebrate his disorderly and perverse thought patterns.

“Mom says that I should lighten up! What should I cut off to make myself lighter? Maybe a leg or an arm? When she sees the bloody stump and asks me why I cut it off I can finally tell her that I’m just obeying my parents.”

This quote from Len’s diary reveals his self-destructiveness, but it also shows that he has a witty, albeit dark sense of humor. This combination of positive and negative traits makes him more human and realistic.

“I told Cameron that I felt isolated and he said that we are all isolated, prisoners in our own skins.”

Here we see both Len’s alienation and the dark bond he shares with Cameron. In many ways, they have the same outsider mindset, although Cameron is neither homicidal nor suicidal. It’s the reason Cameron finds it difficult to break free of Len right up until the end.

“Why do I hate the weak? […] Weak is always there, being obscene and not heard.”

Being a victim of bullying and witnessing domestic violence at home does not make Len empathize with weak people. Instead, the opposite holds true. He may hate the weakness in himself, and tries to compensate with guns.

 “I have bought a gaw-juss weapon. It lies beneath my bed like a secret lover, quiet, powerful, waiting to work its magic. I lie above it, quiet, powerful, waiting to work my magic. The rats are quiet.”

The only things Len expresses any love or admiration are guns. It calms his mind knowing that power lies beneath his bed. He uses repetition—“work […] magic”—a device also seen in poetry. The lyrical language contrasts with its violent subject matter.

“At the ranch. Brad called me a faggot. He pushes and pushes into me. What does he want to know? I’ll just tell him and then we can play another game.”

Len is obsessed with his bully, Brad Williams, whom he mentions several times in his diary. Though he doesn’t say that Brad’s bullying has hurt him, the multiple diary entries suggest Brad’s profound impact.

“HE slaps Mom again. She cries in a corner and has no rage to turn against him. He walks the house, imagining himself to be the captain of some ship, woofing at his crew. Her eye is bleeding. The eye is the entry to the soul, and her soul drips blood. She cries, still waiting to appease him, waiting to slip back into his good humor.”

This is one of two passages where Len describes his father abusing his mother. Len doesn’t want to be like his mom, a victim who doesn’t fight back. He believes that a gun will give him the power to take control.

“I have held Mr. Ruger’s invention close to the Temple of Doom but it doesn’t work. The hands have betrayed me, the transition is too great. There is no Squeeze and SQUISH. There is only Freeze and WISH.”

In this passage, Len considers shooting himself in the head two days before the school shooting. After he doesn’t, he chastises himself for weakness, a trait he hates.