NationStates Jolt Archive

The media are now playing up the fact that Dennis Rader, the accused BTK killer, "rose to the rank of sergeant in the Air Porce, and won medals including the Good Conduct Medal and a Marksmanship Badge."

Wonderful. Why mention this? What the hell does his having been a sergeant in the Air Force have to do with anything? Why mention this when they could have mentioned any of thousands of other facts about Rader's life?

This seems to be just another subtle attempt by the media to imply that having been in the military makes you a potential serial killer. Estimates are that over 4 milion men and women now living have been in the US military at one time or another. Are we now to assume that all of them are potential serial killers?

I'm not aware of any statistics on this, but I would be willing to bet anything that the percentage of serial killers who formerly served in the military is a lot lower than the percentage of serial killers in the population at large.

It saddens me and makes me angry that the first thing anyone seems to say about people committing horrific crimes is if they were in the military.

Well, the first victim was in the Air Force, though not in the same place as Rader. Maybe they're bringing it up for the crime buffs who know all the details.

Some liberals will always jump on past military service, blaming it for every flaw they think a person has.. we've all seen this. But I guess we shouldn't assume ill motives of the media if they aren't trying to fabricate a connection...

I'm not in any way condoning this, as I hate most media reporters adn their inbuilt love of ruining peoples lives, BUT....

When it comes down to it, being in the armed forces means that you are trained how to kill people. You are more likely to know how to kill someone if you have had military training than some poor schmuck who hasn't got a clue. On the flip side, you'll also be more disciplined, and if you served in conflict, probably abhor killing anyway.

I dunno, just my $0.02.

I think it's probably more the opposite. They're implying that having won good conduct medals makes him the sort of person who wouldn't go loony and kill people. It's simple sensationalism - trying to imply that anyone could just snap and start killing people.

I'm not in any way condoning this, as I hate most media reporters adn their inbuilt love of ruining peoples lives, BUT....

When it comes down to it, being in the armed forces means that you are trained how to kill people. You are more likely to know how to kill someone if you have had military training than some poor schmuck who hasn't got a clue. On the flip side, you'll also be more disciplined, and if you served in conflict, probably abhor killing anyway.


I dunno, I think human nature gives us more than enough instinct for killing without military training bringing it out. I think most of us have been in situations where we've been close to killing others, but most of us don't have military training..

The media are now playing up the fact that Dennis Rader, the accused BTK killer, "rose to the rank of sergeant in the Air Porce, and won medals including the Good Conduct Medal and a Marksmanship Badge."

Wonderful. Why mention this? What the hell does his having been a sergeant in the Air Force have to do with anything? Why mention this when they could have mentioned any of thousands of other facts about Rader's life?They HAVE mentioned thousands of facts about his life. The media say things because they think people will go ooh wow fancy that. If he'd saved a kid crossing the road, they would have gone on about his military record too.

This seems to be just another subtle attempt by the media to imply that having been in the military yadda yadda yaddaIt isn't at all subtle. Commercial media, and from my limited experience of US 'factual' media, it seems they do this even more than UK, are *always* going oh look scary this scary that we'll all be murdered in our beds by immigrants with BSE etc. To imagine it is a particular attack on the military verges on paranoia.

The media are now playing up the fact that Dennis Rader, the accused BTK killer, "rose to the rank of sergeant in the Air Porce, and won medals including the Good Conduct Medal and a Marksmanship Badge."

Air Porce?

But seriously, yes, this pisses me off royally. Whether he was ever in the military or not is irrelevant. This is just another attempt to smear our military men and make them look bad.

I'm not in any way condoning this, as I hate most media reporters adn their inbuilt love of ruining peoples lives, BUT....

When it comes down to it, being in the armed forces means that you are trained how to kill people. You are more likely to know how to kill someone if you have had military training than some poor schmuck who hasn't got a clue. On the flip side, you'll also be more disciplined, and if you served in conflict, probably abhor killing anyway.

I dunno, just my $0.02.

Love your sig, man. Engineer jokes crack me up!

Seriously, I think you're blowing this out of proportion. If it was really an attempt to smear the military I think they would have been a lot less complimentary than mentioning that he had reached a position of responsibility and had been awarded for good conduct. They would have gone into salacious details about how he was trained to kill for a living etc. They're just trying to add a bit of character - good guy turns bad sort of stuff.

Air Porce?

But seriously, yes, this pisses me off royally. Whether he was ever in the military or not is irrelevant. This is just another attempt to smear our military men and make them look bad.

And if they said he was a pool guy, you'd be saying it was just an attempt to make pool guys look bad?

Wow. Eutrusca, you should have some thicker skin by now. This is way out of proportion.

The media are now playing up the fact that Dennis Rader, the accused BTK killer, "rose to the rank of sergeant in the Air Porce, and won medals including the Good Conduct Medal and a Marksmanship Badge."...It saddens me and makes me angry that the first thing anyone seems to say about people committing horrific crimes is if they were in the military.

They also made a bag deal about him being very involved in the church, and a supposedly all around nice guy.

I don't think they mean to make it sound like his military experience turned him into a madman so much as "you never know -- look at how appallingly normal and good he appeared to be!"

I'm not aware of any statistics on this, but I would be willing to bet anything that the percentage of serial killers who formerly served in the military is a lot lower than the percentage of serial killers in the population at large.
Actually, this raises an interesting question: What are the statistics on this?

I don't think that this is a question for which we can rely upon intuition alone for an answer. Your intuition tells you that the proportion of ex-military serial killers is lower than average while my intuition tells me that it's actually higher. As McLeod03 says, this could go either way; ex-military are generally trained to kill, but are generally more disciplined. So, it would probably be a mistake to rely on your intuition alone or on my intuition alone.

Now, where do we look up the statistics for something like this? Hmmm....

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Just propaganda by the Leftist Media to make anything that has to do with the government bad. It's a huge conspiracy that many news organizations are involved in. Notice to that the ones that do this are foreign owned.

I don't know about the USA, but over here in Britain its fairly standard to give background on the murderer.

I think it's probably more the opposite. They're implying that having won good conduct medals makes him the sort of person who wouldn't go loony and kill people. It's simple sensationalism - trying to imply that anyone could just snap and start killing people.


thats what I got out of it too

yes anyone has the potential of being a serial killer regardless of their background so just because they were in the military and got high ranks doesnt exclude them.

Having been in the military probably does teach them some of the most effective ways to kill people though eh?

I was just thinking about serial killers the other day - I saw some homeless people and wondered how many homeless people are killed by people who think they will never get caught by doing it because noone will give a damn, so they can have their cheap thrill and murder for fun to see what it's like.

I've always thought it would be fun to be a vigilante and terrorize gang members and hate groups like the KKK, just to give them a taste of their own medicine. But I wouldn't do that because I have compassion even for them.

But back to the main idea of the thread, it does seem possible that those that have killed in the military and liked it may in fact want to have the thrill again and kill for the rush. I wouldn't know, but still I am not coming to the same conclusion as Etrusca about the media demonizing the military. perhaps a tin foil hat is in order? :p :D

Televised media is notoriosly bad for doing this kind of thing; it happens in Britain all the time where they bias a report via either the ommission of certtain facts, or the inclusion of only facts that support their agends. What's really piss poor about this standard of reporting is that they can get away with it due to the fact that such reports do indeed contain factual data, it's just that said facts are either irrelavent to the event in question, or that they do not present the whole story...
I wholeheartely agree with you on this Eutrusca