MUST READ!
Christianity Today August 10, 1998 p. 31f
(available online www.christianitytoday.net)

“Trained to Kill” , by Lt. Col. David Grossman A military psychologist, expert in training people to go beyond natural aversion and kill their own species, analyzes graphically how modern media uses the same “tools” in training our young people to kill.

– he lives in Jonesboro, AR – the boys in Jonesboro fired 27 shots. They hit 15 people from over 100 yards. One of those boys had never held a gun before in his life. How did he get so good?

How do videos, modern media, butcher-flicks all desensitize and bypass the normal reason against killing?

Essence: We all know you can’t have an argument or a discussion with a frightened or angry human being. Vasoconstriction, the narrowing of blood vessels, has literally closed down the forebrain – that great gob of gray matter that makes you a human being and distinguishes you from a dog. When those neurons close down, the midbrain takes over and your thought processes and reflexes become indistinguishable from your dogs.

Within the midbrain there is a powerful, God-given resistance to killing your own kind. When we human beings are overwhelmed with anger and fear, we slam head-on into that midbrain resistance that generally prevents us from killing. Only sociopaths lack this innate violence immune system.

(Desensitization, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning are the means the military uses to break down this aversion. Even some armed forces of the world trained to *like* to kill.)

Enter the splatter film and violent video game. They desensitize, they train to kill, and they make you like it. The media refuses to block it or filter it or even report it. Lt. Col. Grossman, an expert in killology, living in Jonesboro, was an irresistible interview – he gave tons of them. Not one aired.

“Never in my experience as a historian and a psychologist have I seen any institution in America so clearly responsible for so very many deaths, and so clearly abusing their publicly licensed authority and power to cover up therir guilt.”

Last page is full of pro-active responses people can take.