On Killing by Dave Grossman

On Killing by Dave Grossman

The twentieth century, with its bloody world wars, revolutions, and genocides accounting for hundreds of millions dead, would seem to prove that human beings are incredibly vicious predators and that killing is as natural as eating. But Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, a psychologist and U.S. Army Ranger, demonstrates this is not the case. The good news, according to Grossman - drawing on dozens of interviews, first-person reports, and historic studies of combat, ranging from Frederick the Great's battles in the eighteenth century through Vietnam - is that the vast majority of soldiers are loath to kill. In World War II, for instance, only 15 to 25 percent of combat infantry were willing to fire their rifles. The provocative news is that modern armies, using Pavlovian and operant conditioning, have learned how to overcome this reluctance. In Korea about 50 percent of combat infantry were willing to shoot, and in Vietnam the figure rose to over 90 percent. The bad news is that by conditioning soldiers to overcome their instinctive loathing of killing, we have drastically increased post-combat stress - witness the devastated psychological state of our Vietnam vets as compared with those from earlier wars. And the truly terrible news is that contemporary civilian society, particularly the media, replicates the army's conditioning techniques and - according to Grossman's controversial thesis - is responsible for our rising rates of murder and violence, particularly among the young. In the explosive last section of the book, he argues that high-body-count movies, television violence (both news and entertainment), and interactive point-and-shoot video games are dangerously similar to thetraining programs that dehumanize the enemy, desensitize soldiers to the psychological ramifications of killing, and make pulling the trigger an automatic response.

Adam Davis is an author, motivational speaker, and former law enforcement officer. His story reveals the pain that many hide and addresses topics that many avoid. Adam shares his experiences of sexual assault, substance abuse, mental illness, and the struggles and challenges of working in law enforcement. Adam is known for his work on Behind the Badge: 365 Daily Devotions for Law Enforcement, Bulletproof Marriage: A 90-Day Devotional (with Lt. Col. Dave Grossman), and On Spiritual Combat: 30 Missions for Victorious Warfare (with Lt. Col. Dave Grossman). Bulletproof Marriage was a finalist for the 2020 Christian Book Award(R).
Adam's work has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Fox News, The Huffington Post, PoliceOne.com, and Law Enforcement Today. As a speaker, he has presented for the University of Alabama, Auburn University Department of Economic Development, TEDx Troy University, law enforcement agencies, military bases, and many seminars with Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, Taya Kyle,
and other American patriots. His media appearances have included The Rick & Bubba Show, The Blaze Radio Network, Family Life Today, The 700 Club, The Glenn Beck Program, Team Never Quit podcast with Marcus Luttrell, and many others.
Today, Adam continues to dedicate his life to helping others navigate the challenges of marriage and overcoming adversity by continuing to author new, quality resources and speaking across the nation. You can stay up to date with Adam's events and new releases by visiting www.TheAdamDavis.com. He is proudly supported by his wife of twenty years, Amber, and three children.

In their description of Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (US Army Retired), Slate Magazine said, Grossman cuts such a heroic, omnicompetent figure, he could have stepped out of a video game. He has five patents to his name and has published four novels, two children's books, and six nonfiction books to include his perennial bestseller On Killing (with over half a million copies sold), and a New York Times bestselling book coauthored with Glenn Beck.
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.
Col. Grossman's research was cited by the President of the United States in a national address, and he has testified before the US Senate, the US Congress, and numerous state legislatures. He has served as an expert witness and consultant in both 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.
Col. Grossman has been called upon to write the entry on Aggression and Violence in the Oxford Companion to American Military History and three entries in the Academic Press Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict and has presented papers before the national conventions of the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Since his retirement from the US Army in 1998, he has been on the road almost three hundred days a year, for over nineteen years, as one of our nation's leading trainers for military, law enforcement, mental health providers, and school safety organizations.
Today Col. Grossman is the director of the Killology Research Group (www.killology.com). In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks he has written and spoken extensively on the terrorist threat, with articles published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Civil Policy and many leading law enforcement journals, and he has been inducted as a Life Diplomate by the American Board for Certification in Homeland Security and a Life Member of the American College of Forensic Examiners Institute.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780316330114
ISBN 10	0316330116
Title	On Killing
Author	Dave Grossman
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Little, Brown & Company
Year published	1996-11-01
Number of pages	400
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable