Dave Grossman (author)


David Allen Grossman is an American author and law enforcement trainer who has specialized in the study of the psychology of killing, a proposed subset of psychology focused on the study of the effects of killing on the human psyche. He is a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army.

Early life and military career

Grossman was born in Frankfurt, West Germany on August 23, 1956. His career includes service in the U.S. Army as a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division, a platoon leader in the 9th Infantry Division, a general staff officer, a company commander in the 7th Infantry Division as well as a paratrooper and graduate of Ranger School. He went on to become a professor of psychology at West Point. In February 1998, Grossman retired from the military as a professor of military science at Arkansas State University.

Law enforcement training

Following his retirement from the Army, Grossman founded the Killology Research Group to educate law enforcement officers and soldiers how to improve outcomes in lethal encounters. Grossman is best known for his police training program, based on the self-coined study of "killology", which aims to reduce officers' psychological inhibition to kill suspects. Grossman describes a facet of his training as it relates to the human reluctance to kill as "making it possible for people to kill without conscious thought."
Grossman also speaks at civilian events on ways to reduce violence in society and deal with the aftermath of violent events such as school shootings. As a civilian Grossman has served as an expert witness in numerous state and federal court cases and was part of the prosecution team of United States vs. Timothy McVeigh.

Works

Grossman's first book, is an analysis of the psychological processes involved with killing another human being. In it, he reveals evidence that most people have a phobia-level response to violence, and that soldiers need to be specifically trained to kill. In addition, he details the physical effects that violent stresses produce on humans, ranging from tunnel vision, changes in sonic perception, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Robert Engen, in a paper for the Canadian Military Journal critiquing On Killing, both praised and criticized Grossman's works, saying: "On Killing and On Combat form an excellent starting point, there are too many problems with their interpretation for them to be considered the final word on the subject." Grossman's response to Engen, printed in the same journal, addressed the criticisms by arguing that SLA Marshall's findings, even after having doubt cast on their methodology, have borne out in further scientific studies and real world experience, and furthermore, “have been the cornerstone of military and police training for over a half century.”
In Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence, Grossman argues that the techniques used by armies to train soldiers to kill are mirrored in certain types of video games. The conclusion he draws is that playing violent video games, particularly light gun shooters of the first-person shooter-variety, train children in the use of weapons and, more importantly, harden them emotionally to the task of murder by simulating the killing of hundreds or thousands of opponents in a single typical video game. Grossman uses blunt language that draws the ire of gamers—during the heights of video game controversy, he was interviewed on the content of his books, and repeatedly used the term "murder simulator" to describe first-person shooter games.
His third non-fiction book, On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace, is an extension of the first, intended to provide coping strategies for dealing with the physiological and psychological effects of violence for people forced to kill in their line of work.

Criticism

In the aftermath of the George Floyd protests, Grossman's message received criticism from a number of sources as pushing policing in America in the wrong direction and encouraging unnecessary use of force. University of Nebraska criminal justice professor Samuel Walker characterized Grossman's training as "okay for Green Berets but unacceptable for domestic policing. The best police chiefs in the country don’t want anything to do with this.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey banned "fear-based training", a designation that included Grossman's seminars, in 2019.

Non-fiction