Ever killed a man?

[joe]

So I have this writing class. And the early parts of the text book are filled with "First Day in Middle School", "First Time in College", "First College Class." And the students had to write a narrative paragraph.

But I learned from watching a women from the British Council teach that the best way to get something decent from the students is to let them choose the topic. So I wrote on the board "The first time I..." and went ahead and elicited topics.

Of course they said "The first time I met you", "The first time I came to this college". But I wanted something a little better. So I started throwing out topics. "The first time I married..."--gets a laugh. "The first time I killed a man"--gets a laugh. I went ahead and said "The first time I killed a man, it was damn hard"--gets a laugh. "And the second time was easy"--gets a laugh. (Actually I thought just a little too late to say "The first time I fired a gun", because they all have! In military training.)

Anyway, they wrote some interesting stuff, but mostly about the first time they swam, or the first time they caught a train.

At the end of one class a girl came up to me and asked "Have you killed a man?" I was still joking so I said "Um... I don't *think* so...."

She said "I haven't."

"But my brother has."


He's been in jail for eight years. It was a crime of passion, or his lawyer somehow was good, so he didn't get a bullet. Gets out some time this year. She said she's never met him, but since she's 19 I guess she means she doesn't remember him.

[Mr Nobody]

Yeah, not a good subject to joke about.

I have twice thought I killed someone, while only a teenager.

Once, when at school, a guy I sort of accidentally hurt went to hospital. All the other kids said I had killed him, and he didn't come to school for a week. I kept waiting for something to happen but nothing did, then he came back, none the worse for wear.

Another time I really meant to hurt someone, and they were rushed to the hospital unconscious, and I thought I had killed him too, but turns out I only broke his nose pretty badly and knocked him very very cold. They had kept him for observation and possible skull fracture where he hit the ground, and he was unconscious for a quite a while. Only observation, nothing wrong. (edited in later - he was in hospital a school week, and I was told he was in a coma the whole time, but he wasn't. They were more worried about where he hit the ground than where I hit him. The school I was at wasn't too nice, especially for someone who could read and write, and liked literature, science and knowledge.)

Both times I was under the legal age of 18, the oldest time I was 16, both times I had been attacked so I was defending myself, so no legal issues back then. I got over the trauma. I know I have a different perspective in this area because of that. I can still remember their face at that moment just before they realized that I was serious and wasn't playing their game. I also know the bullying stopped pretty quickly too. I hospitalized my father at 18, too, when he attacked me with a knife in a drunken domestic during my parents separation, during my HSC examination period.

But after I grew up, it took a long time before I was able to have the will to defend myself again.

I got over that, too.

[Lotus Eater]

Yes not a good topic to joke about - and the feeling that you may have would be bloody horrible.

But having said that - I shall move it back to a slightly lighter tone: My ex has said many times I killed him. Sometimes he was happy about it, but other times I got the feeling he wasn't being nice.

[Raoul Duke]

Mmmmm....no, I don't think I would ever kill anyone. Unless, of course, they pissed me off.

[AMonk]

Ask me if I believe in Capital punishment, and I'll tell you"No."

But if anyone hurt/killed my child/parents, the answer would be "Where's the rope? Can I swing on it?"

[Mr Nobody]

Let's not go around the capital punishment thing again. I think it is a sanitation and safety measure (not a punishment), Lotus thinks it is evil (I agree but then I think it is needed), most of the others are various levels of in between. All the arguments have been logical as far as they go, the trouble is they all start from differing foundation beliefs, and therefore can't be resolved.

People argue that capital punishment doesn't work, I say it does in the specific (the dead guy can't do it again) others point at stats and say on average it doesn't, which is also true.

And I tend to go with Amonk. I don't like vigilanteeism at all, it is morally and ethically and socially wrong; but hurt my family, expect to find a relentless and nasty person knocking on your door.

Laws are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools

Since most people are fools . . . .

But I am not.

[Non-Dave]

It's easy to talk about killing someone when you're not faced with the situation, or the consequences of the aftermath.

When I talk with my students about having been a policeman someone always asks if I killed anyone...

I haven't, and I don't ever want to.

I do recall very vividly, however, the day I was sworn in as a police officer. I recieved my badge and a Smith & Wesson Model 656 .357 Magnum. A big, beautiful revolver that was later joined by a Glock 9mm, a Smith & Wesson snubnose .38 Special and a HK MP5...

I also recall the feeling I had that if you carry a gun you may have to use it. I made the decision there and then that if ever I was in a situation that required the use of deadly force I would do it cleanly, well and without hesitation. I practised a lot because a weapon is very hard to use (especally a handgun) when you are in a high-pressure, high-stress situation and your hand is shaking with fear.

When you carry a gun there is more than just the weight of the gun that you carry. That's too much weight for me and I'm very happy that I never had to use it or face the consequences using it. I saw lots of people who did kill someone - criminals, police officers and pathetic drunken drivers - and it's not something I joke about anymore.

And the best lesson my Dad ever taught me... "Rules are for the guidance of wise men nd the blinf obedience of fools" - that's been getting me into trouble since I was 12! (But not with Dad)

[Mr Nobody]

If anyone is interested in this field, read "On Killing" by Dr David Grossman for more info on this interesting area of Psychology which just happens to be what I guest-lectured in at Uni, and got nominated as a research associate for my work.

I also became a member on the local govt's committee on inner city violence for a term, but I was virtually ignored by them since they didn't like the truth - some people are violent and many people like risk. I wouldn't have been asked for the next one. Their idea of controlling violence is to paint the buildings in pastels and put lights up everywhere and have security all over. Naive in the extreme, and wouldn't work at all. Nature will always find a way out.

www.killology.com/bio.htm

[Hamish]

daoding said:

If anyone is interested in this field, read "On Killing" by Dr David Grossman for more info on this interesting area of Psychology...

Got it right here on the shelf.

Fascinating how the military paid attention and, by changing training methods, made killers out of damned near everybody. Simple things too, like the shape of targets and having people YELL that they want to kill.

Jesus wept. Another thing Social Science has to pay for. It used to be the exact scientists that had bloody hands. Even the gamers are not covered.

[Mr Nobody]

Well, most of it is now about recovery.

But the studies were done from ww2 onwards, resulting in the vietnam vet problems. Since then work is more on how not to leave the 'trained killers' in a m'kayed up mess, and how to get people to recover from PTSD and cops etc who have had to kill. I don't agree with the military use of this psychology, certainly, although I use it to teach people to defend themselves. Most people do not have the will to do so, or hesitate too long and fail.

But people are doing it to themselves through realistic computer games for hours every day.

Personally, I agree with what Grossman says: you can't cope with the problem unless you understand it. War, murder, terrorism, the nazi holocaust, street gangs, riots, racial violence etc will never be defeated by the prevailing attitudes of scholars. Scholars are mostly nice people and abhor violence, and rightly so. However, it isn't what they think it is - an abberation to get rid of. It is an inherent trait intimately connected to our survival in the past, and probably our future, and the ratio of violent people is pretty well fixed in all societies and all times. People capable of violence are both our worst criminals and our greatest heroes. It isn't just a behaviour, but part of what humans are. We need to deal with it not supress it. We should have learned that from the studies on sex, the other major behaviour.

Most scholars are incapable of understanding violence, because they aren't from the groups that do it. They think that violence is 'wrong' (whatever that means) and that it can and should be gotten rid of. So their approach will fail - like the Council I was on. It is a bit like the old time priests telling kids not to masturbate or they will go to Hell. No bloody idea of reality.

And no, I don't know the answers. I do know that people like various levels of percieved risk, that some people like violence and others don't, and some can injure others with varying degrees and lack of reluctance. And no, I am not talking psychopaths here, but ordinary sane normal people. The 5% of people who are sociopaths are discounted from these studies.

2% can commit violence, another 13% can with reluctance, another 85% can't really do much about it.

But that leaves 7% (2% sane + 5% insane) who can be violent. In a population of 1,000,000, a modest city, that is 70,000 people. My home town hosts an additional 20,000 people on the weekends, mostly young, mostly drinking, mostly looking for fun. Even at 1%, that is 200 fights a night, probably a conservative estimate, although most stoushes are probably more like a one punch thing.

Plus young people often LIKE going where it is dangerous - perceived risk. If they feel safe, they automatically make it more dangerous, a thing called risk homeostasis. (a clue here about why bike riders ride faster in helmets.) So they are exposed to risk and violence and like it. These things are inherent. You can't legislate them away.

[Da Dan]

I ran 4 people over in my car when I was 17... drove right through a crowd.
`thought I might of killed the girl that bounced off my windshield but only busted her pelvis & theigh

the other three bounced away & only had big bruises & minor breakes.

it was interesting when I got my car back & saw All of the circled places where pieces of clothing, hair & other `parts were marked by the investigators.
a LOT of em!

it's suprising how many have killed with their cars.

[Hamish]

Damn!

THAT has got to have some lasting dreams and nightmares associated with the memory.

How do you deal with those?

Or, did they have it coming?

[Justashooter]

almost did, twice.

first time was the typical guy/girl/guy thing. i decided to let him have her, knowing she would torture him to death soon enough. it did work out that way, in the end.

second time was in a factory here. some idiot who makes 1200 RMB a month jeopardised a $250,000 component i had nursed back from the brink of scrap over a 2 month period by "fixing" something on it he thought didn't look nice enough. i had the pipe in my hand. one of my locals took it away from me.

been carrying a gun in the states for the past 20 years (the years i have been there), and only had occasion to draw it twice.

first time was when some fool at a party pointed one at me. he put it down when he saw that mine was bigger. only thing better than a 45 for changing someone's mind is a 12 gauge, but i didn't have one handy.

second time was while on a date with a blonde bimbo. some guys in a parking lot wanted to have fun with us. again, they changed their minds.

[Mr Nobody]

I knew a guy who killed a little girl while riding a motorbike recklessly through a mall, as a lark, when he was 17. He drank himself to death by the time he was 21.

I know a guy who killed a little boy with a car, a couple of years ago, while DUI. He is now out of a job, out of a marriage, and trying to get himself out of a life with drugs and booze.

Although the trauma is less than with actually wanting to kill, there is trauma. Funnily enough, in accidents, from the driver etc, not the victim so much.

[Justashooter]

PTSD is different in accidents than in conflict/combat situations. accidents in which an individual bears some responsibility bring greater grief than validatable agressions for all of us.

when the deceased deserved it, there is no guilt for a certain class of people. these are the type that make good soldiers and police officers. most departments test with the MMPI (minnesota multiphasic personality inventory), looking for this type of candidate. linear thinkers who see clear rights and wrongs are ideal for such roles.

2nd ex was in psych grad school when i met her. she was a professional student at 32, working on her 3rd masters. i helped her through the coursework, and listened to her talk about the casework. i met some interesting people in that time and the early years of her outpatient practice. one of them was a police psychologist.

this shrink was an ex patrolman with psyd, about 50. been there done that type of guy with an understanding of cognitive schema. we became friends. we talked many times about PTSD (i had my own small experience, as did he), and agreed that a subject needed a sense of loss of control in order to experience the phenomenon. policemen he knew who had been thru difficult moments without loosing their confidence were relatively unshaken. those that questioned their own role in unfortunate events suffered greatly.