Taking The Shot

In the nightmare, it’s always dark, and quiet.

That’s how I know it’s not real. The reality was likely a mass of flash-bangs, burning trash, explosions, screams, and certainly gunfire. But in the dream, it’s silent except for the sound-effect gunshots and the first-person breathing. I move with my head locked in position, not bobbing or swaying. The helicopter lands in the courtyard. I move through the doorways, up the stairs, checking rooms with precision. And then I see the target.

And this is when I realize, each time, that the man is Bin Laden.

Do I take the shot?

In the weeks following the “killing of Bin Laden,” as everyone from the Wall St. Journal to the Discovery Channel refers to the events in Abbattobad, I’ve been wracked with ambivalence. Not ambivalence in the sense of “I don’t care,” but in the true sense that I hold so many conflicting thoughts and beliefs in my head at the same time that I can’t find the red ”You are here” spot on my moral roadmap.

But the rightness and wrongness of it all is largely a political issue. One that will no doubt fill toothless coffee shop conversations and wine-soaked dinners for years to come in my privileged, white, American middle-class life. What keeps me up at night is a personal angst, not a societal one.

On hearing of Bin Laden’s demise, I thought the following things, in order:

1: Finally. Rot in Hell.
2: What have we become, as a nation, that we’re assassinating people?
3: What does it mean for me, as a Christian, to be celebrating anyone’s death, no matter how evil?

As details emerged, I tried to imagine myself in the role of the shooter. And that’s when I realized—videogames have made me a less moral person, or at the least, a less mindful one.

I have been in that room in Abbattobad, with the gun in my hand, thousands upon thousands of times. To be sure, I have neither the physical or mental capacity to actually be a SEAL, any more than I could be a brain surgeon or a quarterback. But I have put myself in his shoes, time and time again. I have, in fact, simulated nearly the precise encounter in military shooters for almost 20 years.

And if there’s one lesson I’ve taken away from games, it’s that simulation works.

As a fledgling pilot, I spent twenty hours simulating my Cessna 172 for every hour I spent in the real-world cockpit. This didn’t give me the “feel” for flying, but it did allow me to spend the actual cockpit time solely focused on that missing piece. The checklists, procedures, techniques, math, navigation and even to a large extent the instincts that made me a competent pilot all came from the sim.

Back when I used to drive, I played a lot of racing sims. The first time I had the chance to take a car around an actual racetrack at a SSCA parking lot event, my understanding of line, heel-toe-braking, and traction were completely dialed in, allowing me to focus on all the things the sim doesn’t teach you.

Alan Bean, Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 12, once commented that the actual landing on the moon part was almost dull, because they had been through it in the simulator so many times.

Simulation works in the military, too. There is no doubt in my mind that somewhere on the Mid-Atlantic coast, there’s a 3D model of Bin Laden’s compound. There planners, perhaps even the actual operatives, worked their way through architectural renderings of the facility, learning the firing lanes and hiding spots. They likely ran through drills in the real world as well, simulating the moments of an unpredictable encounter as best they could, to eliminate variables.

So it’s easy to put myself in the ersatz shoes of the shooter. I can close my eyes and imagine myself full of adrenaline—and maybe a little fear—as I move into the room. Something I’ve been trained for. Something I’ve been visualizing over and over on the long ride to the compound. Something that is in fact my very reason for being. The door opens, and there’s the target. In that chaos, in that dirty, musty room in my head, any number of things can happen. Does the man Bin Laden do something threatening? Reflexively, I pull the trigger.

But what if he puts his hands up? Or runs? Do I risk trying to tackle the man, cuff him and get him to the copter? I think I still take the shot.

And this bothers me.

It has nothing to do, honestly, with where on the scale of evil the man is. It doesn’t even have to do with whether I have been told to take the man alive or shoot him on sight. I still think I take the shot, because that’s how I, Julian, have simulated these kinds of encounters, over and over and over again. Because I, Julian, a Christian, Husband, Father, Middle-aged and bald epileptic nerd who runs 10 minute miles on a good day, am in fact a trained killer of men.

What I’m not, obviously, is someone trained to do the actual job on that chaotic night. I am not a trained resolver of high-intensity combat situations. Not a trained negotiator. Not trained to do the complex and highly nuanced job of achieving the mission objectives. My only training is to clear the room and pull the trigger.

There are no handcuffs in Counter-Strike.

Individuals have tremendous power to change the world. Bin Laden certainly did. As did the brave young adrenalin-soaked soldier who evaluated a complex, fluid, unfolding situation and fired. We shape the world every day through our actions, through our choices. We shape the world in our reactions to events like Bin Laden’s killing, whether it’s through introspection, prayer or jingoism.

There’s no point in me moralizing and handwringing about the acts of May 2nd, 2011, or about state-sanctioned assassination or American Hegemony or the beneficent death of monsters. Not until I get my own house in order. I imagine that will be my life’s work.


“And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone ... .” John 8:9

Comments

Your point is well taken. I didn't mean to derail the thread into something else. Of course the article was well written and thought provoking. It's Rabbit after all.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Flying_Norseman wrote:

Yes, yes I did. My comment was directed more at the comment section here and other places. Also, I don't think this article would have been written if there wasn't some sort of "hand-wringing" involved to use my likely poor turn of phrase.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Flying_Norseman wrote:

I am befuddled by all the hand-wringing over this issue. Can't we just be happy justice was served?

Did you even read the article? Maybe try again, there's no hand wringing over whether justice was served or not.

Fair enough, but the introspection* is a jumping off point for a discussion of whether fake violence potentially densensitises us to real violence, and most of the comments have been about this too. I wouldn't get hung up on a few side tracks.

The hand wringing on this site was done weeks ago.

*better word than hand wringing?

~edit to actually address the article~

It's an interesting piece, and something I've thought about myself. I do think that having played shooters and shot a lot of dudes in the face I would find it easier to actually use violence on someone.

Not easy by any means, but I think my resistance would be lower than if I didn't play games.

Nice food for thought, well presented.

*edit* nevermind, point already said better by others

Flying_Norseman wrote:

So is the thought process that Bin Laden might have someday converted to Christianity and become "saved", a chance I might point out he didn't afford his victims?

I'm not actually sure how to even respond to this. You're painting me with a rather broad brush simply because I had the pique to mention religion in a discussion of my own moral code. I think it's pretty save to say that most folks who are against either the death penalty or state-sponsored assassination, or outright criminal homicide for that matter, are against those things because they're evangelical (which, incidentally, I'm not, I'm episcopalian). They're against those things on pure human rights beliefs, for the most part. At least, I have yet to meet any that put this forth as a "everyone can be saved" argument.

And I also made it pretty clear this had nothing to do with whether he SHOULD have been shot:

"It has nothing to do, honestly, with where on the scale of evil the man is. It doesn’t even have to do with whether I have been told to take the man alive or shoot him on sight. I still think I take the shot, because that’s how I, Julian, have simulated these kinds of encounters, over and over and over again. "

Rather, it's the realization that even had I been told NOT to -- even had I been told this guy was simply a suspect to be questioned, I would likely have STILL shot, because of my experience in games.

If you're trying to take something other than that from the piece, well, to each his own. I try to write as best I can.

rabbit wrote:

They're against those things on pure human rights beliefs, for the most part. At least, I have yet to meet any that put this forth as a "everyone can be saved" argument.

I totally agree with this, which is why I find it mildly annoying when I hear someone say "What does it mean for me, as a Christian, to be celebrating anyone’s death, no matter how evil?"

I am not trying to get this thread locked, but as you point out yourself, being against these things is a human rights issue, not a religious one.

I think it is because you mentioned being a Christian AND the Pope AND my poor reading skills that caused my confusion. So, water under the bridge. Keep writing great articles. I'll keep misunderstanding them.

rabbit wrote:
Flying_Norseman wrote:

So is the thought process that Bin Laden might have someday converted to Christianity and become "saved", a chance I might point out he didn't afford his victims?

I'm not actually sure how to even respond to this. You're painting me with a rather broad brush simply because I had the pique to mention religion in a discussion of my own moral code. I think it's pretty save to say that most folks who are against either the death penalty or state-sponsored assassination, or outright criminal homicide for that matter, are against those things because they're evangelical (which, incidentally, I'm not, I'm episcopalian). They're against those things on pure human rights beliefs, for the most part. At least, I have yet to meet any that put this forth as a "everyone can be saved" argument.

And I also made it pretty clear this had nothing to do with whether he SHOULD have been shot:

"It has nothing to do, honestly, with where on the scale of evil the man is. It doesn’t even have to do with whether I have been told to take the man alive or shoot him on sight. I still think I take the shot, because that’s how I, Julian, have simulated these kinds of encounters, over and over and over again. "

Rather, it's the realization that even had I been told NOT to -- even had I been told this guy was simply a suspect to be questioned, I would likely have STILL shot, because of my experience in games.

If you're trying to take something other than that from the piece, well, to each his own. I try to write as best I can.

Flying_Norseman wrote:

I think it is because you mentioned being a Christian AND the Pope AND my poor reading skills that caused my confusion. So, water under the bridge. Keep writing great articles. I'll keep misunderstanding them.

I mentioned the pope?

Valmorian wrote:

I totally agree with this, which is why I find it mildly annoying when I hear someone say "What does it mean for me, as a Christian, to be celebrating anyone’s death, no matter how evil?"

I am not trying to get this thread locked, but as you point out yourself, being against these things is a human rights issue, not a religious one.

I'm sorry you find it annoying. My point is it's not entirely a religious issue, of course it *can* be a religious issue, and for me, yes, I found it disturbing how quickly I celebrated someone's death, especially as someone raised a quaker by hippy conscientious objectors. And I certainly wasn't trying to suggest this was about anyone other than me. I certainly wasn't trying to proscribe or describe anyone else's perspective.

Thanks for the words Julian. Having both played the videogames for many of my 40 years, and been in the position of the trigger-man, and a Christian...I may have a more unique perspective than you on the matter. But, I could never frame it so eloquently.

I think we all need to evaluate ourselves and what we enjoy simulating on a daily basis. And, I think you can be assured that the Navy SEAL who killed UBL did so with a lot less vindictiveness than most of us playing the latest modern shooter feel when we pull the right-trigger.

It was conducted professionally. I am sure there was rejoicing after the fact for a job well done, but a sense of revenge was likely absent in the actual shooter. It is simply the removal of one from a world toward which he decided to remain inhumane and plan the deaths of innocents. You just can't kill real people in a professional sense without a large sense of objective reasoning. Emotion and rage are rarely the thing.

Still, it causes reflection when doing that kind of business. One of my Church leaders recently said "We can go through life safely being and feeling justified through obedience, but Christ has asked us to be sanctified." We should probably spend more of our time practicing to be more gentle people.

I'm gonna shut up now (there was much rejoicing). I'm conflating the article with the comments section.

rabbit wrote:
Flying_Norseman wrote:

I think it is because you mentioned being a Christian AND the Pope AND my poor reading skills that caused my confusion. So, water under the bridge. Keep writing great articles. I'll keep misunderstanding them.

I mentioned the pope?

I have to thank you for calling him "Bin Laden" instead of "Osama." I have heard far too many idiot media people accidentally call him "Obama" while trying to say "Osama" as if they were on a first name basis with the guy. Which is stupid, of course, because in the media, people are referred to by their last names. They would say "Obama won the election" and not "Barack won the election." Ok, now that I have that off my chest, I can relax.

This is a great article, and thank you for writing it. I feel much the same way. I am not a religious person, but I still feel uncomfortable celebrating or feeling elated about the death of a person, even a bad one. I recognize the importance of the event, even if the ultimate outcome is unclear.

For the last few weeks, I have been reading the Spawn comic book series (thanks to the wonderfulness of my new Android tablet), and it deals with similar ideas. Spawn uses his hell-given powers to smite people he considers evil, and yet with each death he inches closer to becoming a general in hells army. His "righteous" deeds will ultimately damn him, essentially.

I guess it gets back to the idea that we should be careful when destroying the monster that we too do not become the monster.

On a lighter note, I have decided that based on the amount of dirt, soda, drugs, women and porn found in Bin Laden's living space, he was not just a terrorist, he was also a college student.

rabbit wrote:
Valmorian wrote:

I totally agree with this, which is why I find it mildly annoying when I hear someone say "What does it mean for me, as a Christian, to be celebrating anyone’s death, no matter how evil?"

I am not trying to get this thread locked, but as you point out yourself, being against these things is a human rights issue, not a religious one.

I'm sorry you find it annoying. My point is it's not entirely a religious issue, of course it *can* be a religious issue, and for me, yes, I found it disturbing how quickly I celebrated someone's death, especially as someone raised a quaker by hippy conscientious objectors. And I certainly wasn't trying to suggest this was about anyone other than me. I certainly wasn't trying to proscribe or describe anyone else's perspective.

I would take the shot at giving you a man hug, you sassy bastard.

rabbit wrote:

Rather, it's the realization that even had I been told NOT to -- even had I been told this guy was simply a suspect to be questioned, I would likely have STILL shot, because of my experience in games.

I think it's safe to say that if you found yourself in this situation, you would have received a level of training that would have made your game-playing experience such an infinitesimal influence on you as to be entirely discountable. Furthermore, I have had the privilege of associating with a few 'operators' and they are all, without exception, consumate professionals. Have no doubt that both kill and capture scenarios were each considered and rigorously practiced, and that the decision to shoot wasn't made because the operator had played Halo the night before, but rather due to an informed, professional, tactical decision made based on the situation at that moment in time.

Coldstream wrote:

Have no doubt that both kill and capture scenarios were each considered and rigorously practiced, and that the decision to shoot wasn't made because the operator had played Halo the night before, but rather due to an informed, professional, tactical decision made based on the situation at that moment in time.

And that's the kind of military shooter I'd like to see one day—not the "always shoot", "he pulled out a gun, shoot him", "buddy kicked his gun to you, shoot him", etc ones.

Did anyone have this scene from Heavy Rain come to mind when reading this?
IMAGE(http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100301050932/heavyrain/images/thumb/9/9b/Nathaniel_Heavy_Rain.png/274px-Nathaniel_Heavy_Rain.png)

Nathaniel wrote:

My final justification is that I allow myself to play games but swear I will never touch a real firearm. Not even to practice shooting. I will not hold others to this standard, but I feel that they should hold themselves to it: that one can either indulge in violent fantasies, or one can wield a tool of violence, but no one should do both.

Thank you for vocalizing why I feel so weird about the idea of target shooting, or even paintball. I never really put my finger on it, but that is it exactly. Well said.

rabbit wrote:

I'm sorry you find it annoying. My point is it's not entirely a religious issue, of course it *can* be a religious issue, and for me, yes, I found it disturbing how quickly I celebrated someone's death, especially as someone raised a quaker by hippy conscientious objectors. And I certainly wasn't trying to suggest this was about anyone other than me. I certainly wasn't trying to proscribe or describe anyone else's perspective.

That's why I only found it 'mildly' annoying. I've seen so many people use "Christian" as a synonym for "moral" that when the two even have the slight veneer of being equivocated it annoys.

Wow.

My first thought is that this is a difficult discussion to have, especially on the internet. I'm glad that Rabbit (and by extension GWJ) is brave enough to try.

My second thought is that Rabbit is still one hell of a writer. Well done, Sir - glad to see you're on the front page again.

My third thought: I've put some time and energy into the hand-winging and analysis of what Bin Laden's death means, and what would justice be, have we lost some of the moral high ground by assassinating him, etc etc etc. I never once considered how FPSs or video games generally may have influenced how I think about this.
This has given me some real food for thought... and I'm glad for that.

I pretty much agree with the article all around. I made a similar post to my blog back on the 4th about how it reflects poorly on us that we're celebrating this, and hoping that the guy is swept into the dustbin of history and forgotten...

http://socia.arkaic.com/blog/post/ka...

I think you said it better than I did.

Gaald and I spoke of this briefly during one of our Minecraft sessions. I've always been a fairly religiously neutral person, and I don't find much value in basing real world decisions off of my poor grasp of religion. That said, I think that it's a victory as a whole for us that he is dead, if nothing more than a symbolic event. I wish we could end the wars and bring the troops home now that we have, in essence, done what we've set out to do, but that doesn't appear realistic. There's no doubt that this is a complex situation, and I fear that I lack the focus at the moment to better clarify my position.

The only thing that I will say is that putting the moral and ethical debates we can have over his death itself aside, it is absolutely tasteless to celebrate in the street over it.

I am guessing this is inappropriate? I was starting to feel sullen.

Edit: NSFW!!

Hello, long time reader first time poster here.

Thank you for sharing, thoughtful and personal writing is always a joy to read.

This bring to mind two important ideas in the gaming community's self awareness vocabulary; meaning and violence. The defense of violent videogames as things that don't negatively affect people has often (if not always) been completely without nuance from the gaming world, violence doesn't in games does not cause violence in real life, period.

There does seem to be quite some research to back it up (and some to oppose it, I believe). But let us consider the philosophical implications. It wouldn't be a stretch to describe violence (from Super Mario and Zelda to Manhunt and Gears of War) as the primary (or at least central) action of most games. If we so regularly engage in playing violence and the violence doesn't effect us doesn't that deprive the game of meaning?

Everything we do effects us, even when separated by layers of abstraction. Reading romance novels, watching Fox News (or The Daily Show for that matter), posting in forums, hanging out in poetry clubs, studying at a university, watching pornography and playing Call of Duty all effect us, or else they would not matter. These things can be good or bad, but everything matters, even when the truth is that they effect us negatively.

It strikes me that the two seminal works of Christian fiction of the previous century, Lord of the Ring and Narnia, never really discuss violence. Both Tolkien and Lewis are fine with letting their characters do quite a bit of killing clearly marked enemies. Fighting Sauron or The White Witch is the obvious thing to do (G.K Chesterton, an important inspiration for both authors once said that what a writer really believes will be implicit and not explicit in a text) because they are evil. Both authors fought in WWI and their fiction was published after WWII, a time when the British really believed in the possibility of just war.

Then Vietnam happened.

Anyway, I know you weren't discussing if wars or violence could be justified or not but I want to contrast it with another historical tendency.

No act of the Roman Empire seems to barbaric to me as the gladiatorial arena. Somehow the armies and oppression of Rome don't seem nearly as offensive to us today even if the body count was doubtlessly higher then Circus Maximus. They at least served a purpose and Pax Romana seems like a pretty rad system. But watching slaves fight to the death was the decadence of the rich. For perhaps it is so that most people are just naturally inclined to violence, and when the rich lords no longer rode to battle their bloodlust needed to be satisfied some other way.

Of course, a closer parallel to modern videogames would be that to wrestling (and martial arts in general). And yes, but not killing people in either of them they are infinitely preferable to the butchery of Rome. But even without the high stakes the similarity remains, the blood of a headshot does satisfy.

I am not a violent person, but on (very) rare occasion I loose my temper and violence clouds my mind for a moment. While I have never hurt anybody physically in rage, I am terrified that I might do so one day. But still I love to fantasize myself as a warrior, because when it's only in my head violence is fun and exciting. To imagine yourself fighting is easy, fighting the evil in the world is hard. The magical samurai in my head has strength, experience and independence that I can only hope to claim as my own.

I don't know what conclusion to make, beyond praying for the strength to do good and for grace when I fail.

Wow, I love the tone of conversation here.

wordsmythe wrote:

Did anyone have this scene from Heavy Rain come to mind when reading this?

Judging by the number of comments to the effect of "Ken Levine, make a SWAT game!" and "I'd like to see the kind of shooter where you don't just kill people," I'm not the only person who would like to see more like that scene.

Good article; it touched on quite a few points my friends and I have been discussing.

Nathaniel wrote:

Thank you for this piece, rabbit. It's one of the main things I wrestle with when it comes to violent video games: how do I reconcile my essentially pacifist nature with a hobby of simulated violence? We often like to pretend that we are immune to desensitization, or that the games have no effect on us, but psychology tells us differently.
*snip*
My final justification is that I allow myself to play games but swear I will never touch a real firearm. Not even to practice shooting. I will not hold others to this standard, but I feel that they should hold themselves to it: that one can either indulge in violent fantasies, or one can wield a tool of violence, but no one should do both.

Nathaniel, that sounds like a good principle. I'm on the flipside. I have never been able to play violent video games that take place in a historic or real-word context; whatever uniform that pixellated soldier wears, I see a person.

Instead, I shoot my revolver at the firing range and earnestly pray I never have to use it on another.

rabbit:

I think it's pretty save to say that most folks who are against either the death penalty or state-sponsored assassination, or outright criminal homicide for that matter, are against those things because they're evangelical (which, incidentally, I'm not, I'm episcopalian).

Wow, really? I'm against death penalties in general because I don't think they're effective. I did not know that this would mean that I'm painting myself as a probable evangelical the moment I oppose the death penalty in discussion. I know you said "most," but I think the general sentiment is an accurate description of forum behavior around here.

Thanks. That's another land mine avoided!

Spoiler:

I got hit with the broadside of what now appears to me decades of American debate when I said that ToE was "just a theory," which it is. I didn't realize that I was painting myself as an opponent of the theory just by saying that. Sometimes I think it'd be beneficial if I parsed my English a little worse.

Its something I are go to be think about.

Coldstream wrote:
rabbit wrote:

Rather, it's the realization that even had I been told NOT to -- even had I been told this guy was simply a suspect to be questioned, I would likely have STILL shot, because of my experience in games.

I think it's safe to say that if you found yourself in this situation, you would have received a level of training that would have made your game-playing experience such an infinitesimal influence on you as to be entirely discountable. Furthermore, I have had the privilege of associating with a few 'operators' and they are all, without exception, consumate professionals. Have no doubt that both kill and capture scenarios were each considered and rigorously practiced, and that the decision to shoot wasn't made because the operator had played Halo the night before, but rather due to an informed, professional, tactical decision made based on the situation at that moment in time.

The gist I got from the article was not that Rabbit was worried that the person who took the shot was some kind of Counter-Strike junkie himself. Judging from the comments, it seems like any attempt to apply anything in the article to anyone other than the writer himself just gets us into trouble. The tone of the article is much more personal than that.

Is it likely that Rabbit or any of us here will find ourselves in a situation like that of the folks who were tasked with taking out Bin Laden, at least without receiving the equivalent training to those folks? Of course not. But I think it's perfectly valid to examine oneself using hypothetical situations as a sort of thought experiment.

In asking, "What kind of person am I?", it can be useful to frame the question in the form of, "What would I do if...?" In this case, "What would I do if faced with a life-or-death decision?" The question is not, "What would I do if faced with a life-or-death decision AND I had the training to deal with it," it's, "What would I do AS I AM NOW if I were faced with such a decision?" And if the answer to that question is not to the asker's satisfaction, then it becomes necessary to examine the factors that lead to the asker failing to measure up to their own standards and, if necessary, alter their behavior or thought patterns in order to become a better person in their own eyes.

The point is not that I find it likely that I will actually be in that situation in the future. The point is that I want to be the sort of person who would act correctly in such a situation.

LarryC wrote:

rabbit:

I think it's pretty save to say that most folks who are against either the death penalty or state-sponsored assassination, or outright criminal homicide for that matter, are against those things because they're evangelical (which, incidentally, I'm not, I'm episcopalian).

Wow, really? I'm against death penalties in general because I don't think they're effective. I did not know that this would mean that I'm painting myself as a probable evangelical the moment I oppose the death penalty in discussion. I know you said "most," but I think the general sentiment is an accurate description of forum behavior around here.

Erm, think there's a typo there, based on the context from which you are pulling that line. The next sentence he writes

They're against those things on pure human rights beliefs, for the most part. At least, I have yet to meet any that put this forth as a "everyone can be saved argument

which suggests to me he meant to write

...are against those things not because they're evangelical.

Chairman_Mao:

Thank you for the correction! I can't really tell. It makes sense worded both ways.

Thanks Mao.

Yeh, my thought process kind of skipped over celebration. My reaction was very 'Oh. Okay, I guess'. And I got kinda sickened by all of the celebration, yet got criticized for feeling perhaps it wasn't a good thing for society to celebrate death.

Having said that, I have no familial links to 9/11, and don't even have that much memory of it, so I am kinda disconnected here.

I understand that you're coming from it from a Christian perspective, but like others I think it's a universally tricky area of morality. I'm not sure being Christian should give anyone any more or less pause on this issue. I think as an atheist I struggle with similar issues. But that's all I'll say about that.

I certainly have trouble with the idea of celebrating a death. I guess my own reactions were muted. I thought it good that he is dead rather than alive, and of course had some questions about the circumstances under which it occured.

But once those feelings had settled I just felt like surely the dignified way to deal with it is to acknowledge the death with the solemnity that it deserves. Strip away the events, the identity, the specifics and we're left with the idea that a human life had gone wrong so badly, caused so much harm to others, that it was felt necessary to end it. Even if it's the right thing to do, it's still a tragedy because the very fact that such a destructive and hateful life existed in the first place is inherently tragic. That doesn't seem like the time to go 'woo-hoo!' Don't mourn his death, but surely there's room to reflect and genuinely mourn his LIFE.

As for your musings on video games, I think it's interesting to wonder how you might have acted in the same scenario, but it's so difficult to predict how much of that would and wouldn't have to do with games. No doubt games can desensitize people to violent situations/imagery, but surely being there in the heat of the moment, with all that real pressure and real emotion could turn plenty of people into killers who would not ordinarily be.