Lt. Col. Dave Grossman
Credit: John Midgley
One morning in October 2016, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman was in a Red Lion Hotel conference room in Sacramento, California, preparing to speak to a group of state troopers about what it’s like to kill.
Grossman, 60, is a former West Point psychology professor who’s spent much of his career studying killology — his term for the psychology of taking a life. Among the military and law enforcement, he’s a revered figure. His first book, On Killing, is part of the curriculum at the FBI academy and on the Marine Corps Commandant’s Professional Reading List. Its follow-up, On Combat, is probably best known for his assertion that people can be divided into three groups — sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs — and it’s the sheepdogs, “blessed with the gift of aggression,” who are responsible for protecting the sheep from the wolves. The analogy has been adopted by various military and gun-rights groups; in Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, the father of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle gives […]
This is not new. It’s been going on for quite a few years. If cops are warriors then everyone else is the enemy. Not good.
Disturbing look at what goes on inside the government security business. More evidence that government is predicated on violence. I know sleep deprivation is a problem but this lame one size fits all excuse does nothing to hide the naked aggression and militarization installed into front line government jackboots.