A closer look
Most soldiers in historic battles never fired their weapons to kill, even when their lives were at stake. Studies of civil war muskets found many rifles loaded multiple times without being shot, suggesting men went through the motions without pulling the trigger. Military historian S. L. A. Marshall controversially argued that only a fraction of infantry actually aimed to kill in World War II, with others firing high or not at all. Whether or not his exact numbers hold, later research supports a stubborn reality: humans have a deep resistance to directly taking another person’s life, even in war. Modern armies responded by changing training methods to desensitize recruits, using realistic targets and simulation to make shooting feel automatic. The eerie takeaway is that our biology leans away from killing, but institutions can override that instinct with enough conditioning, turning a rare act into a practiced reflex.
