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Scene from Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper”
There is a disturbing cycle of violence that occurs when a wolf gets loose among a flock of domesticated sheep. The wolf kills and maims as many sheep as possible as fast as possible — far more than it needs to eat. This “surplus killing” is inflicted only on domesticated animals and is partly responsible for wolves’ reputation as bloodthirsty killers. Such killing sprees are often misinterpreted as killing for sport, but they really represent a wolf just being a wolf. “Surplus killing” is not caused by the wolf but by the behavior of the prey. In the natural order of things, the taking of prey by a predator is a risky business and wolves often must work hard to cull a single animal from a flock just to survive. But when offered domesticated sheep, who’ve been bred into a state of docile helplessness, no such deterrence exists. I am struck by how similar our society has become. Wolves are out there whether we like it or not. And wolves will be wolves. The problem is in how much like sheep we have become. We clamor for yet more gun control, expanded “safe zones” and politically correct appeasement measures that serve only to embolden the wolves. These responses are useless in preventing the next attack and, in fact, only reinforce the vulnerability that virtually guarantees an escalation in the cycle of violence.