[tacitusarc]

The Snopes article is useful. For those who don’t want to read it, here is what Grossman says about that quotation:

> That clip took my entire, full day presentation, and took it completely out of context.

-They left out the part where I say that this is a normal biological, hormonal backlash from fight-or-flight (sympathetic nervous system arousal) to feed-and-breed (parasympathetic nervous system arousal) that can happen to anyone in a traumatic event.

-They left out the part where I say that there is nothing wrong if it doesn’t happen, and absolutely nothing wrong if it does happen.

-They left out the part where I say it happens to fire, EMS and even victims of violent crime.

-They left out where I say that it scares the hell out of people.

-They left out where I talk about it (and remember it is common in survivors of violent crime), as kind of a beautiful affirmation of life in the face of death; a grasping for closeness and intimate reassurance in the face of tragedy.

[malfist]

I'm not sure that's at all a defense. That context in no way absolves him of bragging about how he's gets the best sex in his life EVERY TIME HE KILLS SOMEONE.

[danlitt]

The quoted text describes separate comments from different police officers. It's also reported by a third party, is a paraphrase rather than a quote, and isn't bragging.

[ceejayoz]

The bit where he calls it a perk of the job is Grossman himself.

There's plenty of video of the guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETf7NJOMS6Y

[danlitt]

Yes, he seems like a psycho.

[malfist]

How is it not bragging?

[petsfed]

There are a million ways to express the fact of the hormonal backlash without including a quote that makes it sound like killing will improve your sex life.

In context, its correct, that's not up for dispute. The question is "does it add anything to the context?" and more importantly "could a student misconstrue its inclusion as something else?"

You'd think that, being so educated on the hormonal backlash from experiencing trauma, that cops and the greater judicial system would be more forgiving of e.g. emergent hypersexuality in rape victims after experiencing a rape that Grossman calls out there. But you would be wrong, because even if Grossman wants his students to understand that concept for their own health, he wildly misunderstands the culture he helped create where the police view themselves as a thin blue line holding back the manifold forces of Chaos Undivided.

[drdeca]

I don’t see why any of those should be exonerating?

Also, I feel like “nothing wrong if it does happen” regarding shooting someone, is the wrong perspective. If shooting someone is necessary, then it is necessary, but that doesn’t mean nothing went wrong. Anytime someone gets shot is a time something has gone wrong.

[vostrocity]

So if someone threatens to kill you and your family, and you shoot them, something has gone wrong? I'd say something has gone right.

[drdeca]

Yes, something has gone wrong: someone threatened to kill me and my family, and apparently the only way to stop them from doing so was to kill them. That may be the best option available, but it is still a tragedy.

[ceejayoz]

There are many situations where that isn’t the right response to that.

[wat10000]

I really have to wonder what part of that he thinks makes it OK to call it a perk of the job that you get to have awesome sex after murdering somebody for work.

[ceejayoz]

Yeah, shitty people often claim the context is exonerating.

> They left out where I say that it scares the hell out of people.

People literally pay money to do things that feel that way. Haunted houses, bungee jumping, skydiving.

Context: Grossman's employed to train cops to overcome relutance to shoot.

[scarecrowbob]

Damn, hoss, didn't think I'd wake up and have to read someone normalizing police violence.

Like, they could just not, you know, go around creating the conditions for their own trauma.... that's a much more legit strategy. That's why folks aren't having this discussion about, say, "fire, EMS and even victims of violent crime".

I know that violence creates traumatic responses, I've been getting a lot out of therapy after being illegally pepper sprayed by DHS last year. Real fuckin' hard for me to feel super sad that those officers probably had big feelings about that violence themselves when they could just, like, not go around assaulting folks.