Intimacy of killing” might sound incongruous, but that is what “killology” founder Lt.Col. Dave Grossman seeks to detail in his 1995 Pulitzer shortlisted book On Killing. It has since — particularly post 9/11 — become required reading at many military schools and law enforcement agencies in the U.S. In its initial appearance, the book was primarily a detailed study of how armies the world over developed ways to make troops overcome the aversion to kill after it became evident that nearly 85 per cent of riflemen did not fire their weapon at an exposed enemy even to save their own lives or that of their comrades in World War II. By the time of the Vietnam War, this “Johnny-can’t-kill” syndrome had been dealt with through psychological conditioning and the non-firing rate was reduced to five per cent but at a huge psychological cost; making Grossman assert that man by nature is not a killer despite the increase in violence in day-to-day existence. And, that seems to be his main concern in...