Many people at shooting ranges may fire off rounds at targets featuring blank silhouettes, or even images of weapon-bearing criminals or monsters.
But a team of designers trying to raise awareness about gun control has created targets featuring images of the ordinary people more likely to get shot.
The posters are the work of Ewoudt Boonstra, Zack McDonald, and Anthony Burrill.
“Abused women are five times more likely to be killed if their partners own a gun,” one poster reads.
“Twice as many women are shot by their husbands than by strangers,” reads another.
"We hope our little project might make the average American stop and think about the issue of gun control," McDonald told BuzzFeed News. "We know that it's a massively divisive issue. There are strong opinions on both sides. Innocent Targets is our way of joining the conversation."
The design team, made up of both Americans and Brits, is trying to raise money for an anti-gun violence group.
"Every hour an American younger than 25 is killed by a gun," reads one poster.
"Hunters accidentally shoot more than 1,000 people each year," reads another.
The designers say they are not opposed to people practicing shooting in a safe and lawful manner.
"None of us are regular shooters but all of us have been to shooting ranges," McDonald said. "The aim isn't to mock gun ranges. In fact, many of the people who visit these ranges are the most responsible gun owners around. We're simply using the visual language of shooting targets to make a statement about gun violence in America."
"Firing real bullets at zombies, aliens, terrorists and action movie villains seemed like a really bizarre thing to do," he said. "After seeing a countless number of tragic gun violence stories, we felt that we could make a powerful statement by replacing the 'bad guys' with innocent, everyday people."
Many of the other posters feature interesting statistics to offer new insight into America’s gun culture. "Americans produce 75,000 albums each each and 5,500,00 guns," reads one poster.
"20 American states allow people to carry guns in churches."
"Americans own 70 million dogs and 270 million guns."
"We recently received a letter from a mother of one of the victims of [the 2012 Aurora shooting in Colorado] thanking us for bringing attention to gun violence with our project," McDonald said.
