Killology

By Author: Terry Dashner
Total Articles: 105
Comment this article

Life is Cheap

Terry DashnerFaith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013

Some of my most productive years in law enforcement were spent as a school resource officer. I remember one author who contributed much to my understanding of how kids use violence against each other without compunction. His name?—Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (Army retired). Grossman is well qualified to speak and write on the topic of juvenile violence.

Grossman is from Jonesboro, Arkansas where, you might remember, a schoolyard shooting left four girls and a teacher dead at Westside Middle School on March 24, 1998. He travels the world training medical, law enforcement, and U.S. military personnel about the realities of warfare. During his military career he taught psychology at West Point and Military Science at Arkansas State University. He is a military historian, and former army ranger. Again, he is well qualified to speak on the topic of killology.

Grossman has written two books that I have read: On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society and a book he co-authored ...
... with Gloria Degaetano entitled, Stop Teaching our Kids to Kill (Crown Publishers 1999). Both books are exceptional reads and address how kids learn to kill other kids.

In his book, Stop Teaching our Kids to Kill and in his introduction, he tells a bone-chilling story of how some kids view violence. Grossman writes, A teacher at Westside High School told me about her students' reaction when she went in and told her class that someone had just shot a bunch of middle schoolers. ‘They laughed.' I suppose they may have laughed because they thought the teacher was joking. Or because it was the only, absurd reaction to a truly absurd and horrifying event. But she and I both believe they did so because they have been raised and educated not to take killing seriously. For them violence doesn't hold consequences. Tragically, for many of our kids the loss of human life to violence has become a joke.

Is killing a joke? Before you question my sanity, think about this. Have we become calloused to taking human life? Certainly we are repulsed by murder and juvenile violence, but what about partial-birth abortion? Although this is outlawed by the President and the U.S. Congress, some federal judges have said the law is unconstitutional. What about abortion period? What about child neglect that leads to child deprivation and death? Yes, it's a crime, but some who are convicted walk after a slap on the wrist. What about? And the list goes on.

I'm not writing to debate the legalities involved in Roe v. Wade or to push for stronger punishments for convicted child molesters, and etc. I'm writing to hopefully strike a nerve with America. If we continue to numb our children with hours-on-end of media violence while turning a deaf ear to killing of the unborn, how long will it be before my life is at risk, simply because I'm an inconvenience to someone or some institution?

In all the world religions, one thing stands apart in Christianity. Christianity alone embraces all kindreds, tribes, cultures, and says this: God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus, to lay down his life for you and me and everybody. And because He died for me, I can receive His life and live forever with Him.

Keep the faith. Stay the course. Jesus is coming again one day soon.Pastor T.


About the Author Pastors a small church in Oklahoma.