The trick is forgetting they are children.

If you remember that they are children, you will not be able to go on with any of this. If you remember when you were a child, and frightened, and everything seemed impossibly big and loud and sharp and hard except a certain pair of familiar arms, this will have to stop.

The trick is forgetting that there is such a word as “child.” To remember words like “bad hombre” and “thug” instead. You do not have to say “animals,” if you do not want to. There are other ways. “To assume that just because of someone’s age or gender or whatever that they don’t pose a threat would be wrong,” Sean Spicer bumbled last year.

“Deterrent” is a good word, too. “Zero-tolerance” is even better. And no one likes the idea of a “human shield.”

The trick is to wrap this up in words so tightly that you cannot see the child inside.