A Discussion on the moral aspects of taking a life

1. The Moral Aspects of
Killing

2. LTC Dave Grossman ( 1 of 5)
• He is a US Army Ranger, a paratrooper, and a former West Point
Psychology Professor. He has a Black Belt in Hojutsu, the martial
art of the firearm, and has been inducted into the USA Martial Arts
Hall of Fame.

3. LTC Dave Grossman ( 2 of 5)
• Lt. Col. Dave Grossman is an internationally recognized scholar, author, soldier, and
speaker who is one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of human
aggression and the roots of violence and violent crime.
• Col. Grossman is a former West Point psychology professor, Professor of Military
Science, and an Army Ranger who has combined his experiences to become the
founder of a new field of scientific endeavor, which has been termed
“killology.” In this new field Col. Grossman has made revolutionary new
contributions to our understanding of killing in war, the psychological costs of war,
the root causes of the current "virus" of violent crime that is raging around the
world, and the process of healing the victims of violence, in war and peace.

4. LTC Dave Grossman ( 3 of 5)
• Col. Grossman’s research was cited by the President of the United
States in a national address, and he has testified before the U.S.
Senate, the U.S. Congress, and numerous state legislatures. He
has served as an expert witness and consultant in state and
Federal courts. He helped train mental health professionals after
the Jonesboro school massacre, and he was also involved in
counseling or court cases in the aftermath of the Paducah,
Springfield, Littleton and Nickel Mines Amish school massacres.

5. LTC Dave Grossman ( 4 of 5)
• Since his retirement from the US Army in 1998, he has been on the
road almost 300 days a year, for over 19 years, as one of our
nation’s leading trainers for military, law enforcement, mental health
providers, and school safety organizations.

6. LTC Dave Grossman (5 of 5)
• In Grossman’s view, it has long been a myth that one of the greatest threats
to mental health while at war is the fear of dying. At least as distressing is the
act of taking the life of a fellow human being, regardless of nationality or
circumstance. This can be seen when soldiers put themselves in danger to
avoid having to kill someone else, an act that, in Grossman’s experience,
occurs more frequently than we think.

7. Law Enforcement part 1
• The job of a police officer is associated with the high level of exposure to potentially traumatic
situations, such as responding to children who are sexual assault victims, motor vehicle crashes and
witnessing violent deaths.
• Previous studies have found that the rates of current duty-related Posttraumatic Stress Syndrome
(PTS) in police officers vary between 7% and 19% and many other officers experience symptoms.
• Police officers are at times required to use force that may result in the severe injury or death of
another person, and the exposure to circumstance in which an officer kills or seriously injures
another individual adds to the traumatic consequences.

8. Law Enforcement part 2
• Although law enforcement undergoes extensive training in handling multiple criminal
incidents and investigations, the most extensive job training is not enough to prepare an
officer for the sight of a suspect pulling and/or discharging a firearm.
• Officers may encounter incidents that are typically outside the realm of human experience
and irrespective of stress tolerance or occupation. Such experiences can be traumatizing
such as being involved in a shooting that resulted in another person’s death.
• When law enforcement officers are obliged to employ deadly force, irrespective of how
justified it may be, most officers manifest a degree of anger or guilt after a fatal
confrontation. Psychiatrists label the emotional distress that follows the shooting incidence
as a "post-shooting trauma".

9. Law Enforcement part 3
• The post-shooting trauma can extend beyond the scope of the
involved officer to include his or her family. The side effects can
surface at home in the form of disillusionment, confusion, insecurity,
grief, frustration, depression, and anger.
• The same elements that generate the aforementioned emotional
reactions can also prepare law enforcement officers to handle an
array of critical and life-threatening incidents.

10. Psychological Price of War (1 of 4)
• During World War II more than 800,000 men were classified as 4-F or unit
for duty for psychiatric reasons.
• The Armed forces lost more than 504,000 due to psychiatric collapse.
• A World War II study determined that after 60 days 98 percent of all
surviving soldiers would become psychiatric casualties of one kind or
another.

11. Psychiatric Casualty
• A psychiatric casualty is a combatant who is no longer able to participate in combat due to
mental (as opposed to physical) debilitation. Psychiatric casualties seldom represent a
permanent debilitation, and with proper care they can be rotated back into the line.
(However, Israeli research has demonstrated that, after combat, psychiatric casualties are
strongly predisposed toward the more long-term and more permanently debilitating
manifestation of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.)

12. Psychological Price of War (2 of 4)
• Fatigue cases:
• Increasingly unsociable and overly irritable the soldier loses interest in all activities and
seeks to avoid responsibility or activity involving physical or mental effort.
• Confusional States:
• Usually the soldier no longer knows who he is or where he is.
• Unable to deal with his environment he removes himself from it.

13. Psychological Price of War (3 of 4)
• Conversion Hysteria:
• Can manifest itself as an inability to know where one if or to function at all, often
accompanied by aimless wandering around the battlefield with complete disregard for
evident dangers.
• Anxiety States:
• Characterized by feelings of total weariness and tenseness that cannot be relieved by
sleep or rest, degenerating into an inability to concentrate.
• If they can sleep are often awaken by terrible nightmares.

14. Psychological Price of War (4 of 4)
• Obsessional and Compulsive States:
• Similar to conversion hysteria
• Tremors, palpitations, stammers, tics, and so on cannot be controlled.
• Character Disorder
• Includes obsessional traits in which the solder becomes fixated on certain actions or
things.
• Accompanied by irascibility, depression and anxiety often taken the tone of threats to
his own safety.

15. What Does it Feel Like?
• The basic response to the stages to killing in combat are concern about
killing, the actual kill, exhilaration, remorse, and rationalization and
acceptance.

16. Concern
• How am I going to die?
• A fear that the first response to killing is concern as to whether at the
moment, of truth will they let their buddies down, will they freeze up or will
they be able to do it.
• Only 15 to 20 percent of World War II soldiers went beyond stage 1

17. Killing Stage
• Killing in combat is usually completed in the heat of the moment
• Being unable to kill is a very common experience
• They can either rationalize what has occurred or become fixated and
traumatized by their inability to kill

18. Exhilaration Stage
• Combat addiction
• Caused during a firefight, the body releases a large amount of adrenaline into
the system and you get what is referred to as a "combat High"
• Problems arise when you want another "fix" and then another.

19. Remorse Stage
• "...my experience, was one of revulsion and disgust....I dropped my weapon
and cried...There was so much blood....I vomited.... And I cried....I Felt
remorse and shame. I can remember whispering foolishly, "I'm sorry" and
then just throwing up........"
• Some believe that this is rooted in a sense of identification or an empathy for
the humanity of their victim.

20. Rationalization/Acceptance Stage
• This is a lifelong stage in which the killer tries to rationalize and accept what
they have done.
• Not always truly reached by one who has killed
• Cannot always truly leave the guilt behind but can come to terms with what
they have done

21. Truth?
• What percentage of Soldiers fired their weapons in World War II?
•20
• A study was conducted by the Army after World War II that discovered that
in combat only 15 to 20 percent of soldiers fired their weapons and an even
smaller percentage fired to kill. The Army then changed its combat training
to desensitize soldiers to the humanity of the enemy.

22. Truth
• Desensitization and conditioning of soldiers after World War II Increased
firing rates from 15-20 percent to an all time high of 95 percent during
Desert Storm.

23. Why Children are killing Children

24. Questions