Grossman "On Killing"
- Thread starter bamaranger
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That may be true to some degree, but not every act of self-defense requires the trigger to be pulled. While admittedly rare, I have heard/read stories of people who were put in situations that were resolved by simply displaying/brandishing a gun who, afterwards, were quoted with things like "I'm so glad he was scared off, I don't think I could have brought myself to actually shoot him." As I said though, these instances are very rare both because, as you point out, a lot of people who can't make themselves shoot don't survive to talk about it and a lot of people who don't think they could shoot find out that they can indeed when a true life-or-death situation presents itself.
This is true and the reason that I think so many people don't believe that they could kill someone if necessary. That being said, survival instinct and fight-or-flight is a powerful thing, more powerful that many give it credit for, and unless someone has been in a true life-or-death emergency, they might be surprised at what they're capable of under the right (or perhaps wrong) circumstances.
Another factor is how often "moral objection" is used as a cover for panic or inability to operate under extreme stress. I've worked in the medical profession for over a decade and, because of that, I've been in a number of emergent, life-or-death situations. It is surprising how many well-educated, well-trained people often with years of experience lose their ability to make decisions when the code blue alarm goes off. I have to wonder how many people who later said "I just couldn't bring myself to kill someone" said so because that still gives them some semblance of moral high-ground and thus, in their mind, is preferable to being thought incompetent or cowardly.
Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. I agree that an "enemy" hundreds of yards away who is hiding and simply trying not to be shot himself isn't as "immediate" a threat as one climbing into your foxhole at O-dark-thirty. However, an enemy a few hundred yards away who is actively shooting at me with a rifle that's capable of killing me at that distance is a bit more "immediate" a threat, particularly if I don't have a ready avenue of escape and/or adequate cover/concealment.
Agreed, but how it's "different" would, I think, depend on the person. Some might have a more difficult time shooting at the enemy a great distance away because they don't perceive him as an imminent threat. Others, however, might find shooting at a far-away enemy to be easier because they're "just shooting at a fleeting shape" and don't immediately have to see/think about it being an actual person they're trying to injure or kill. We don't seem to hear about nearly as many cases of PTSD from artillery crews or the crews of battleships and bombers because, even though they rationally "know" that their enemies are people and that their actions are taking the enemies' lives, they usually don't have to see it as up-close and personal as infantry troops do.
I don't disagree, but I think that the training you reference has more to do with overcoming the objection to shooting enemies who are indirect rather than direct or eventual rather than immediate threats to the individual soldier. A suicide bomber several hundred yards away presents no direct threat to the sniper aiming at him through his riflescope, but he does represent a threat to the sniper's friends and allies. Likewise, the enemy soldiers trying to escape the burning bunker may not be an immediate threat to the soldier who sees them, but they will be a threat if they're allowed to escape and regroup into a counterattack.
These gray areas between direct vs indirect and immediate vs eventual threats are, I think, where a great deal of the issues in civilian self-defense stems from. While the exact details of the laws on self-defense can vary significantly from one jurisdiction to another, most of the self-defense laws in the United States have the threshold for justified lethal force as "legitimate fear of imminent death or great bodily injury" or some other wording similar to that. The problem is that what constitutes a "legitimate" fear and what constitutes an "imminent" threat are both subject to a great deal of interpretation. For example, many people would say that someone in a vehicle who is screaming, making profane gestures, and gunning their engine at a pedestrian represents an imminent threat because the motorist has already demonstrated that they are enraged/deranged and could, at any moment, utilize their vehicle as a deadly weapon. Other people, however, would say that the motorist is not an imminent threat because the pedestrian does not know that the motorist isn't just a loud-mouthed paper tiger. This is largely where issues like disparity of force, mutual combat, and justifiable distances come from.
I also find Grossman's assertation that refusing to shoot the enemy and/or intentionally missing the enemy due to moral objection was commonplace during the civil war to be dubious because, at that time in history, the killing of another person was legal and considered socially and morally acceptable for a wider variety of reasons that is the case today. For example, throughout most of the 18th, 19th, and even early 20th century, using deadly force to protect property and prevent the theft of certain items was more widely accepted legally, morally, and socially than is the case today. This is because, at that time, it was understood that while the theft of a man's livestock, crops, or other goods may not immediately put his life in jeopardy, the loss of such items could very likely put his life in danger eventually due to factors like exposure or starvation. Obviously today the loss of property is much less likely to put one's life in jeopardy due to a variety of social, economic, demographic, and technological changes that have happened over the last 100+ years, but there are still cases where it is a possibility. Even so, it is unlikely that the person who shoots someone trying to steal his vehicle in the desert or someone trying to steal a life-sustaining medical device or medication would be looked upon kindly be it legally or socially. I find it difficult to believe that moral objection to shooting an enemy in a war were more common in the era of hanging horse thieves than they are today.
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I find his assertions to be dubious on a number of levels, but that doesn't change the observed fact that in combat, a certain percentage of troops will not fire their weapons, another percentage will fire but not actively aim and the larger percentage will do their jobs (intentionally try to hit the enemy), despite their personal feelings about taking a life.
Leave aside civilian self defense, that is a different matter.
In combat, one finds three general classes of troops. Those that were professionals before the fighting started, those that have volunteered to fight, and those who wound up in the fighting against their personal wishes (draftees, etc.)
Also there is the small matter that no matter what group they fall into, people, can, and do change after their first combat. Some get "born again HARD" and some fall completely to pieces, and some are somewhere in between.
Saying that in an earlier age people were less likely to shoot the enemy due to their religious convictions is an oversimplified, and inaccurate statement. For SOME people it was, no doubt the truth. But as a blanket statement, it has more holes than my grandmothers crochet work.
Before there were insurance companies, FDIC or other means of having your property restored, deadly force was acceptable in defense of "mere" property, because the loss of such could kill you, AND your family, but not fast like being shot, but slowly by starvation or exposure or other means. And even the most non-violent people/social groups recognized that.
There is a very old joke that illustrates that, one about a thief and a Quaker.
The thief breaks into the Quaker's home and is stealing the family silver. He is confronted by the Quaker, who is armed.
The thief laughs at the Quaker and says "I do not fear thee, for thou art Quaker, and will not shoot me!"
To which the Quaker replies, "Brother, I would not harm thee for any reason, but thou art standing where I am about to shoot!"
The thief drops the silver and runs....
Point here is that even people with very strong convictions against the use of deadly force do recognize that there are times when it is not only necessary, but it is the right thing to do.
Which has little if anything to do with what troops have been observed to do in combat.
Leave aside civilian self defense, that is a different matter.
In combat, one finds three general classes of troops. Those that were professionals before the fighting started, those that have volunteered to fight, and those who wound up in the fighting against their personal wishes (draftees, etc.)
Also there is the small matter that no matter what group they fall into, people, can, and do change after their first combat. Some get "born again HARD" and some fall completely to pieces, and some are somewhere in between.
Saying that in an earlier age people were less likely to shoot the enemy due to their religious convictions is an oversimplified, and inaccurate statement. For SOME people it was, no doubt the truth. But as a blanket statement, it has more holes than my grandmothers crochet work.
Before there were insurance companies, FDIC or other means of having your property restored, deadly force was acceptable in defense of "mere" property, because the loss of such could kill you, AND your family, but not fast like being shot, but slowly by starvation or exposure or other means. And even the most non-violent people/social groups recognized that.
There is a very old joke that illustrates that, one about a thief and a Quaker.
The thief breaks into the Quaker's home and is stealing the family silver. He is confronted by the Quaker, who is armed.
The thief laughs at the Quaker and says "I do not fear thee, for thou art Quaker, and will not shoot me!"
To which the Quaker replies, "Brother, I would not harm thee for any reason, but thou art standing where I am about to shoot!"
The thief drops the silver and runs....
Point here is that even people with very strong convictions against the use of deadly force do recognize that there are times when it is not only necessary, but it is the right thing to do.
Which has little if anything to do with what troops have been observed to do in combat.
I read Grossman a long time ago and agree with some of his premises but it should be remembered that after a soldier becomes desensitized to death he can become a killing machine. Loss of buddies or self-defense will kick in and overcome any reluctance to kill. I read of one medic who was a consciencious objector in 'Nam. He had a wounded GI in a hut he was attending too when Mr. Bad Buy (unsure if it was NVA or Mr. Charlie) burst in. Instinctively the medic grabbed the wounded GI's M-16 and killed the intruder.
I'd say that medic overcame his objections. 
This is one of the points I was trying to make, no matter what convictions and beliefs you have, after the first battle people change. Some change a little, some change a lot, some change in ways that aren't readily apparent, but everyone changes, in some way.
This is one of the points I was trying to make, no matter what convictions and beliefs you have, after the first battle people change. Some change a little, some change a lot, some change in ways that aren't readily apparent, but everyone changes, in some way.
A late uncle of mine was in the 101st Airborne in WWII and was part of D-Day and served continuously through and at the siege of Bastogne where he was wounded and evacuated. He said that ammo was very low at the time the siege ended, with no one having more than an 8 round clip or two at most, and some soldiers were down to a single round. If a sizable number of troops were not actually shooting they would have ended up with large amounts of unused ammo, something that would have been observed by others.