Five shooting bays allow officers to shoot at targets up to 50 feet away. A mock-up of a house stands in one corner, for hostage scenarios. The thick cement back wall of the range is pock-marked with bullet holes. At the wall's base, in piles of sand, lie hundreds of flattened bullets.

HUPD's firearms training is one of the most rigorous programs in the Commonwealth, says Sergeant Scott Simas, HUPD's rangemaster.

Officers go through 40 hours of firearms training in the police academy and then another 40 hours of training at HUPD before they begin patrolling.

HUPD issues each of its beat officers a .40-caliber Glock 22 pistol with a fifteen round magazine--a powerful handgun that is the only firearm the department allows officers to carry.

The guns themselves are a rarely used last resort, instructors say. The University only authorizes using deadly force to save the life of an officer or another person, and HUPD stresses at every level of training that guns should only be used when a lethal threat is imminent.

"God forbid you ever have to pull that trigger," Favreau says.

No HUPD officer has fired a hostile shot in decades, department officials say. However, shootings in other college environments are not rare. Just two weeks ago, two officers at the University of California at San Diego shot and wounded a knife-wielding man in one of the university's dormitories.

Favreau says the department is lucky to receive so much firearms training. Most departments in the Commonwealth, including the Boston police, pass the state's firearms test only twice a year--HUPD officers do so four times a year, and also go through eight hours of additional training each year.