# Teaching soldiers and kids to shoot people **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 23, 2001, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teaching-soldiers-and-kids-to-shoot-people/59175 "2001-03-23T17:22:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2001, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teaching-soldiers-and-kids-to-shoot-people/59175/41 "2001-03-27T16:01:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Alessan \* > As to “dehumanizing the enemy”: if you have time to think about the enemy at all - as anything other than a target - while you’re advancing under fire, then you’re doing something wrong. Soldiers aren’t trained to dehumanize, they’re trained to _focus_, to think of nothing but the task at hand. And frankly, when you’re under the effects of an adrenaline rush, that’s not as hard as it sounds. And that’s exactly the point of the operant conditioning techniques of modern military training. The enemy soldier is now simply a target. My point about dehumanizing propaganda was that it is the same concept - the enemy soldier isn’t fully human. Obviously, this was not part of actual training - shouting at your recruits that the enemy rapes chickens during combat simulation probably wouldn’t be all that effective. 🙂 Sua ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2001, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teaching-soldiers-and-kids-to-shoot-people/59175/42 "2001-03-27T16:38:56Z")
Whrn you put it that way, Sua, I can see your point. When I went through similar training, I didn’t exactly feel as if the enemy was dehumanized - rather, I felt that whether the enemy was human or not was irrelevant to the task at hand. What I was taught, however, was an extreme _humanization_ of my fellow soldiers - that their lives were more important than anything else, and that loyalty to them was the ultimate value. In effect, I was taught to kill the enemy because he was threatening my friends. Is that a form of dehumanization? Perhaps, but an oddly positive form. ---
**Author:** ![dublos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f08c70/32.png) [@dublos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dublos)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2001, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teaching-soldiers-and-kids-to-shoot-people/59175/43 "2001-03-27T17:01:05Z")
Well, FPS games, whether using a more elaborate gun like device for a controller or using a keyboard, can certainly contribute to the dehumanization of “the enemy” Consider if you will all the add on packs or skins available for number of FPS games that allow you to change your opponents into various other targets rather than the folks the game designers first created. What I still don’t see is the part Gigi just brought back to mind. > [@](#): > > What I remember most clearly was his idea that the school shooters were remarkably accurate in shooting their victims in the head with one shot. and the like. He felt that constant use of video games had trained hand-eye coordination to new levels and allowed for more efficient killing by these kids. Now I have never fired a gun and I have no idea what amount of eye hand coordination it takes to place a bullet on target at the range these folks were shooting at. I cannot really relate how someone playing a FPS, using keyboard or even a joystick is training the eye hand coordination necessary for this sort of targeting though. As a teen I became truely awesome at a number of videogames, but it didn’t do a thing for my eye hand coordination away from those games. Juggling helped that 🙂 Could anyone who’s actually read one of Col. Grossman’s books share with us what the line of reasoning on this is? Can those who’ve been through the military’s training regiment relate to us whether the military relies solely on simulations and excercises where you are training both muscles and mind (simulations using guns) or also utilizes simulations where you’re using a keyboard or joystick to kill your opponent? -Doug ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2001, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teaching-soldiers-and-kids-to-shoot-people/59175/44 "2001-03-27T22:49:20Z")
Procacious - Why do you think having people think you are a sociopath is relevant to this discussion? There is a world of diference between wanting to kill someone and actually going ahead and doing it. I like games like Rogue Spear and Delta Force. I hardly want to go out and snipe at real people from a bell tower. And another thing, all those dorks who think videogame training is the same as firing a real gun need to go to a gun range and try a real gun out. Playing Quake no more helps you fire a gun more accurately than playing PlayStation baseball helps you hit more home runs. Aiming and firing a gun requires physical coordination. Firearms are heavy and things like wind and the kick of the gun itself can throw off the shooters aim. It’s hardly rocket science though. You can teach someone to accurately fire a gun in 15 minutes. With a couple hours of practice on a gun range, that person could become reasonably proficient. They won’t be Joe Marksman, but they’ll be good enough. Besides, playing videogames, paintball, cops n’ robbers, etc. dosn’t change your morals and values. ---
**Author:** ![Procacious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Procacious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procacious)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teaching-soldiers-and-kids-to-shoot-people/59175/45 "2001-03-28T07:25:54Z")
> [@](#): > > Procacious - Why do you think having people think you are a sociopath is relevant to this discussion? There is a world of diference[sic] between wanting to kill someone and actually going ahead and doing it. I was supporting the claim that video games can make people more violent or at least more comfortable with the idea of killing. This was one of the points being debated. Making people think that I am a sociopath was merely a formality of honesty. > [@](#): > > Now I have never fired a gun and I have no idea what amount of eye hand coordination it takes to place a bullet on target at the range these folks were shooting at. I cannot really relate how someone playing a FPS, using keyboard or even a joystick is training the eye hand coordination necessary for this sort of targeting though. Hand-eye coordination, as I understand it, would not help in the targeting of people, but would quicken the amount of time it takes to fire after targeting. With a high enough level of hand-eye coordination, firing would immediately follow targeting (meaning that the moment that one has a good shot the trigger would be pulled without having to think about it). This, of course, is not true in cases where surprise is important. However, after the first carefully planned shot, the other shots would need to be done quickly before all the potential targets run away. High hand-eye coordination would quicken the overall rate of fire and would lessen the need to lead the targets when firing, which should increase accuracy in cases where the targets are not moving in a straight line at a constant speed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teaching-soldiers-and-kids-to-shoot-people/59175.md?page=2)