Did I tell y'all I had to participate in active shooter drills as a substitute teacher? Here's my experience with them, and why they're so terrifying.

1. Little kids (I'm talking ages 5-10) know that when this drill happens, they take it seriously. They call them "intruder drills" but almost every child says something like "oh yeah, it's for when someone with a gun comes on campus." Hearing that from a 7 year old is horrifying.

2. Middle and high school kids are serious too. During one drill that was a surprise to the students, they knew exactly where to hide so if a shooter walked by it would look like the class is empty. These drills were the only time they ever listened to me at a 100% level.

3. You are in charge of these students for the day. If you don't lock your door, you fail. If your lights aren't off, you fail. If your kids aren't huddled around in a corner of the classroom, you fail.

4. To bring this all together. You say fail during an active shooter alert. What they don't tell you is that if it was real, fail means you and your students die. Fail means that someone you've known for a few hours will tell you what to say to their family if they die.

Fail means that students have their IDs on them on a lanyard and you have an emergency list of students because when evacuation happens and someone isn't checked off on your list, it becomes a recovery mission and they identify their body with the lanyard they're wearing.

That's what fail means.

And that's what teachers go through, every time there's a drill.

That's what students go through, every time there's a drill.

But by all means, keep your fucking semi-automatic assault rifles on display at your house and scream second amendment rights.