More food for thought.

The following is a link to a PDF file. It's apparently testimony given by Dave Grossman, apparently to the Senate at some time or other (there's no indication in the text as to when or why it was given)

It's pretty interesting reading. I disagree with a lot of his conclusions, but it's truly frightening to listen to his comparisons of point-and-shoot video games and real military training.

The opening is probably the most chilling part of it. It tells of school shooter Michael Carneal's "feat" of scoring 8 hits with 8 shots (including 5 headshots) after having practice-fired his weapon only once and never having fired a gun other than that in his life. Eye witness testimony says he stood with the gun held firmly in both hands, his feet planted, and never fired very far to the left or right. Basically, he was playing a video game, and firing on anything that popped up on his "screen".

Also in here are some of the statistics I quoted in my previous post. The 15-20% firing rate of troops in WWII, the finding of multiply-loaded rifles after the Battle of Gettysburg, and the training that sought to correct that flaw. The most telling statistic I thought was the one on the "killing potential" of the average Civil War regiment. Taking into account the firing rates and the tactics used, the average regiment had the potential to kill 500 to 1000 men per minute. However, the *actual* killing rate was only one or two men a minute. The *overwhelming* majority of all soldiers could not shoot to kill when the time came. They would either not shoot at all, or would intentionally miss their target. By the time of the Vietnam war, with the new training methods, that statistic was reversed. Now 90%-plus of all soldiers shoot to kill when the time comes. Grossman's main point is that this same kind of desensitisation training that enabled our military to learn to kill is also being given to children on a daily basis in the form of violent media and point-and-shoot video games. Like I said, I don't agree with a lot of his conclusions, but his arguments are compelling.

-- Dave