Deathly Thoughts...

I've started reading "On Killing" by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a long overdue perusal of a most worthy book. It's an extended loan (ahem) from a good friend and commenter here Heath, he of the amazing fu stache and proximity to the World's Most Dangerous Librarian. "On Killing" is a look at the psychology of killing as it pertains mainly to wartime combat, with applications to the most final of outcomes for self-defense.

It's one of the few things that gunnies don't actually like to talk about. Sure, we joke about some goblin who "needed killing" or ponder the many gruesome ways we could dispose of a daughter's ill-mannered suitor, but there's rarely much mentioned about serious situations involving deadly force. We take note of dead goblins, dispatched by civilians, without considering the heavy toll that death takes upon the person pushed to that end, rightfully cheering the riddance of one of society's drains but glossing over the nightmares the private citizen will undoubtedly endure.

It's one thing to point your gun at a paper target, steel plate, or bowling pin. It's when your front sight covers a living, breathing human being that the psychology of killing comes into play - in Grossman's book, he brings up the statistics that, even in the most pitched battles of WWII, only 15-20% of the soldiers on the line actually fired their weapons. The remainder either found other things to do, fired wildly into the air, or simply froze up, unable to bring themselves to take another human life even at the expense of their own lives.

Squeezing that trigger will result in someone losing all of their tomorrows. Now, that someone may very well be coming through the window with duct tape and a butcher's knife in hand with the sole purpose of killing you and your entire family - but the inescapable fact is that with the gun in your hands, as you line up his sternum against your front sight, you will have to make the final, ultimate decision. Your act will result in someone ceasing to be. You will play G-d.

And you have to be ready to play G-d. You have to have made up your mind, well in advance, that you are capable of taking the life of another living, breathing human being. There's no practice for this; the closest would be hunting insofar as you do take a life. But there's a world of difference when it's another human being - that's someone's child you're targeting. It could be someone's father, or brother, or husband - heck, you may very well take a father away from his children. Even if they deserve all that and then some, the choice is in your hands whether they live or die - and you have to be 100% certain that, when the time comes, you can pull the trigger and live with the consequences.

Obviously, there are caveats. We're assuming that there are no other choices; that you've called the police and have screamed that fact until you are hoarse; or perhaps it has happened so fast you haven't had time. We're assuming that you have identified the threat as potentially deadly, either physically seeing a weapon in use or brought to arms or having reasonable suspicion thereof. We're assuming that you or a loved one is in grave, imminent danger - that it's a lot more than some drunken idiot shouting obscenities from the street. Even assuming for the sake of argument that it could very well be Jack the Ripper his ownself come back to life from the dead bashing in your front door with a fireman's axe while screaming "I'm going to eat your heart".

Even with all that said, you've still got to be 100% certain that when the chips are down, you can suppress eons of instinct and taboo against killing another human being and perform the ultimate task. It's not a decision I - or anyone in the gunnie community, I'd venture to guess - take lightly; I would hope we all share the sentiment that we'd be very happy never having to make that choice. The world is not perfect; evil walks among us; and some people just need killing, though - we'd just all prefer that it was someone else doing the killing.

I hope and pray I never have to find out if I have what it takes to actually pull the trigger. I hope I'm never in the position of having to decide to take a human life. I've been close once - threatened with a knife - although at the time I was armed only with adrenaline and a body like a silverback gorilla, and managed to present a large enough adversary that the young man in question realized he might kill me with that knife, but he'd get beaten to death in the process. That moment, though, that it clicked in my head that I might be in moral peril, I felt the beast inside me snarl. It called for blood. It soothed my fear and filled me with a terrible resolve.

It was also the most frightening feeling I have ever felt, and I cannot pray more fervently that I NEVER feel it again.

That is all.