
Originally Posted by
stander-j
...I figure, the only real use for an assault rifle, in the hands of a civillian, is for the entertainment .
I keep reading this "in the hands of a civilian" as though somehow, putting on the uniform promotes the wearer to a higher moral code.
In my experience, it just may be that the opposite is true.
In ww2. it was discovered that only a small percentage of those engaging the enemy acttually shot at and hit the enemy. So an agressive remodeling of the mind was developed by the military to increase the number of those willing and capable of shooting/killing others was developed>
here's a brief summary from:
Military education and training - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A leading expert in military training methods, Grossman(2001) gives four types of training techniques used:
[1]
According to Grossman (2001), these techniques were meant to break down barriers to embrace a new set of norms and way of life (brutalization), condition them to pair killing with something more enjoyable and pleasurable (
Classical Conditioning), repeat the stimulus-response reaction to develop a reflex (
Operant Conditioning), and finally the use of a role model of a superior to provide action by example.
There is an old army joke wherein a young private says to his seargent
"searg, I can't shoot women and children"
and the seargent replies,
"sure you can, just don't lead them as much"
When in the military, i met some who would "kill for fun"---"for the entertainment", not many, but enough to make the arguement against assault weapons, or any weapon "in the hands of a civillian" really seem silly.
As part of our training, they convinced us that we had gone to war with China-------(Oh my god, "China", I thought, "China who could field a soldier for every man, woman, and child alive in america"----"Oh Shit"----thought I, I then noticed that almost all of the other 1700 guys there with me were shouting enthusiastically in favor of the upcoming battles, shouting things like: "yeah, lets go kill 'em"---whereupon, I thought, "and I get to go fight with this collection of moronic lunatics"----"OH SHIT", as i sank down in my chair-------) Out of the 1700 of us, there were only 5 or 6 "oh shits" and we all got to visit with the battalion comander who informed us that we/i had a bad attitude. OK seriously?
On another note, there was a young sculptor, Eric, here who used to come out to my studio. We would work together, chat, and just enjoy the company of a peer. Unfortunately, he was dating the same woman as was a seargent on the local police force. One night while Eric was working late in the office of a company his father had built, the police seargent stopped a patrol car and claimed that there had been a report of an armed prowler in the neighborhood---long story short--- a young cop saw the light on in the office and burst through the door, and seeing a phone in Eric's hand, thought it a gun, and fired point blank into Eric's chest killing him. There was no record of any 911 call reporting a prowler that night, so I am left to wonder, and, i think it was murder. No trial was held. No justice for Eric's friends and family. It destroyed Eric's father, who let his business fall into ruin.
so
"in the hands of a civilian"
who better?