The conclusion: that out of one hundred people, as few as 15-20 men "would take any part with their weapons."" This carried over "whether the action was spread over a day, or two days or three- (On Killing 3). Grossman states, "From the military perspective, a 15 percent firing rate among riflemen is like a 15 percent literacy rate among librarians-(Trained 9). It was from this point the army discovered an innate resistance to killing our own kind and developed a system to overcome it. And overcome it they did. By the Korean War the killing rate of our soldiers rose to about 55% and by Viet Nam, over 90% fired to kill (9).
It was discovered that under normal circumstances we don't kill each other. When we are overwhelmed with anger or fear, our forebrain (which distinguishes us from animals) experiences vasoconstriction, the narrowing of the blood vessels that literally closes down the forebrain, causing the midbrain to take over. It is here that we have a hard-wired resistance to killing our own kind. Every species has this resistance, with the exception of a few. Like animals in territorial and mating battles, there is much posturing and noise to get the point across and to get the opponent to flee. Killing isn't usually the option. Only sociopaths---who by definition don't have this resistance--- lack this innate violence immune system (6).
According to Grossman, regarding the undisciplined nature of the entertainment industry,"œ if you are conditioned to overcome these midbrain inhibitions, then you are a walking time bomb, a pseudo-sociopath, just waiting for the random factors of social interaction and forebrain rationalization to put you in the wrong place at the wrong time- (Conditioning 2).
The system our military developed to teach or young men to overcome this natural killing aversion is:.
Desensitization and brutalization.
Classical conditioning.
Operant conditioning.
Role modeling.