by Dave Grossman

About the author: Dave Grossman is a retired army officer and the author of On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society and the co-author of Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie, and Video Game Violence.

Editor’s note: The following viewpoint was given in May 1999 as testimony before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on Youth Culture and Violence.

My background is as a West Point psychology professor and Army Ranger, [and as] a professor of military science. I have written three encyclopedia entries on the process of military enabling of killing, and the entry in the Oxford Companion to American Military History, ... and the book, On Killing, that is being used as...