Rating: 
Summary: For those teaching combat a must read.
Review: Great insights that, on many points, are consistent with my experience of studying, training and teaching traditional Chinese combat arts for the past 30 years.
Rating: 
Summary: Very intriguing
Review: A quality study on a very interesting topic. Besides the occasional repetitiveness and the last chapter of the book, it is a great work. Easy to read, you don't need to be a psychologist to understand it.
Rating:
Summary: A must for those who run to the sound of gun fire.
Review: If you are one of the few, that run to the sound of gunfire, and not away from it, you must read this book. It does not matter if you are in the military or a peace officer. You have to mentally prepare for what has happened, or might happen to you. This book will help you do that.If you train warriors, you must prepare them, as well as yourself for what might happen to them. You both need to read this book. I have attended Lt. Col. Grossman's lectures. I was in San Diego for the California Peace Officers Standards & Training Symposium for Firearms Instructors and Trainers. I saw 300 hard bitten trainers give him a standing ovation after his lecture. If there is a possibility that you will face a Critical Incident, this is the book to read.
Rating:
Summary: A flawed masterpiece on a taboo subject
Review: Lt. Col. David Grossman's ON KILLING contains much information of great value. The good parts are superb. Unfortunately, there's a fair amount of dubious material too. Grossman notes that many studies have shown that most soldiers in combat will not spontaneously fire a rifle at an enemy, and suggests that there is an instinctive barrier against killing our own species in most people. So far, so good, and the evidence he sites convinced me. But then he tries to apply this to all of military history, with dubious results. For instance, it never occurs to him that among the reasons so many people using smoothbore muskets missed are 1)The muskets had no sights; 2)The soldiers using them had no markmanship training -- in fact, they frequently went into their first battle without ever having fired their weapon at all; 3)It's always easier to shoot on the firing range than on the battle field (naval gunnery in combat deteriorated radically compared to pre-war practice). Similarly, 1% of the fighter pilots got 40% of the kills -- but considering that bomber gunners weren't taught how to fire properly at attacking fighters till almost the end of the war (see Geoffrey Perret's WINGED VICTORY), fighter training may have been similarly bad. And one reason so many of the abandoned muskets at Gettsyburg had multiple loads may well be that the soldiers who double loaded them were paniced, and the panic also led them to get killed, or drop their rifle and RUN. When he comes to the plague of violence in modern urban USAmerica, Grossman is alarmed by violent video games and movies, and their possible effects on our children. An important subject, and he may be right. But I looked the movies he sees as dangerous (DIRTY HARRY, FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH, etc.), and they didn't appear till after the rate of violent crime had shot up. Same with the video games. Nor is there much consideration of cross-cultural crime rates, even though "violent American movies" (and even more violent Japanese movies) are seen worldwide. Why the wide national differences in crime rates? Further, while it's easy to see how a military training program that teaches automatic reactive firing in combat is rather like a modern video game, the high school massacres we've seen recently didn't occur as a result of someone firing at an armed teenager, who then went ape. They occured because kids brought guns to school with the deliberate, pre-meditated intention of murdering the unarmed. Mass murder and serial killing have existed throughout human history. Still, even with these reservations, I highly recommend this book. Grossman has taken the first good look at a subject that has been almost totally ignored. I hope others follow his lead.
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Summary: A courageous and insightful look at a difficult topic.
Review: As a police psychologist who has worked with many police officers and military veterans, I have seen first hand the price that many of them paid when faced with having to use deadly force as part of their job. As a society, we often forget what we are asking soldiers and police officers to do to keep the rest of us safe. Grossman eloquently and compassionately forces us to take a closer look at their sacrifices and perhaps take more responsibility for enabling them to do our dirty work for us. I found Grossman's book to be an accurate reflection of the experiences with violence and killing of the veterans, cops, and crime victims I have worked with. We all owe Grossman a debt of thanks for opening up this difficult topic to closer scrutiny. Given the trauma and heartache that interpersonal violence causes in this world, this book should be required reading for everyone on the planet. Alexis Artwohl, Ph.D., author of DEADLY FORCE ENCOUNTERS
Rating: 
Summary: Simplistic distortion of psychological theories.
Review: As a professor of Psychology (and not a stooge of the video games industry) I was quite disappointed with this book. Although it is probable that as a professor himself Grossman understands the basic theories of Pavlovian conditioning and operant conditioning, his attempts to apply these theories tortured the basic concepts into an almost unrecognizable form. Although I believe that it is truly important to discover the mechanism that allows some humans to kill others (and why so many can't or won't even try) this book is not going to shed any significant scholarly light on the subject.
Rating:
Summary: "OUTSTANDING"
Review: As a veteran Law Enforcement/Military Firearms Instructor, I utilize philosophies presented in On Killing to hopefully give neophyte police officers and soldiers a better insight to the lethality of life related to violence. Combat is combat, jungle or city street. Literary works such as this will do no harm other than stirring up the liberal camps. It will, however, be a personal prescription to fight a never-ending disease-apathy toward justice and democracy. One shot-One Kill, not just for snipers. This work hits the target. Vol 2 anytime soon?
Rating:
Summary: A superbly researched book on a difficult subject
Review: On Killing is a superbly researched book on a difficult subject. Psychiatrists who deal with veterans from any war should keep it on their desk and in their thoughts when dealing with veterans and PTSD. Somehow David Grossman has extracted the kernels of truth about killing from combat veterans without being one himself, a major achievement by any standard. Real combat veterans are notoriously close-mouthed unless they've had a bit too much to drink - or smoke. As one of the "other 2%" as an ex-small arms instructor in the Australian Army and as a forward scout, rifleman and machinegunner in combat -- I was continually astounded at how many soldiers in our very professional army could not function in combat. At long last I now understand the reason, we're all different but human and I thank David for so starkly illuminating that for us all. Sherro.
Rating:
Summary: A valuable book for the military and law enforcement.
Review: The author explains how and why killing is enabled in the military and how these techniques are inadvertantly being transferred to the civillian population. The book is a valuable reference for law enforcement trainers and anyone who wishes to know why our society is troubled by violence. Hopefully, this work will inspire others to address and examine this issue.
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Summary: It was inevitable that someone would try to attack this book
Review: The author of this book has testified before Congress and Senate Committees, has been on "60 Minutes" and his research has been cited by the President in a national address condemning violent video games. He has been one of the leaders in attacking the violent video games and has one of the best inditements of media violence ever published. This book is being used as a text in colleges world wide. After 32 glowing Amazon.com reviews, and literally hundreds of glowing reviews in the popular press (world-wide!), it is inevitible that one of the stooges of the video game industry would attack this book. That is why I am so glad to see the recent (and ONLY) review attacking this book: this means that the book is having the impact it should. It is clear that Lt. Col. Grossman is drawing blood somewhere and some lackey of the violence industry is trying to strike back! And THAT is a good sign that this man, and this GREAT book are having an impact. Read it for yourself and see what YOU think!
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