Killing Strangers

A few things come to mind when attempting to understand this song. I used to assume that people were referring to themselves in songs, and later found out that a lot of songs are satirical. Now we could assume that Marilyn Manson is killing strangers, but we know better than that. He might be referring to war, killing people in other countries, so they don't kill the people we love in our country. Maybe it's the murderers that we are killing, so they don't kill our loved ones. Perhaps Marilyn Manson is thinking about how one would kill strangers instead of their loved ones, to release their anger and aggression without paying the price of losing someone they love, but maybe just hate at times.

I'd like to propose a different angle. I doubt this is what he means, since he refers to guns and weapons of sorts, but could this possibly refer to lust and sexual desire/addiction? I say this because I remember a study we talked about in a human sexuality class i took in college where they observed porn/sex addicts. They noticed that each addict avoided sexual partners and sexual content of a certain type. Through counseling they discovered that the participants had gone through a heartbreak at some point in their life with a significant other. The study conductors basically said that the addicts tried to fill their sexual desires and companionship needs with people who didn't remind them of the person they still had strong feelings for or at least did for a while after the relationship had ended. This sort of leads to the typical reason for sexual addiction, attempting to fill a void of companionship.

So hence, they're avoiding sexual partners and content that reminds them of their previous relationship. Instead, they are "killing strangers" by consuming them as sexual partners, and avoiding "killing" the ones they love.

This makes more sense when you look at it like this: If they hook up with someone similar to their past relationship they will then realize that they could find someone just as good as the one they lost. Effectively "killing" the value their ex holds in their heart. So they avoid that by "killing" the value anyone else (a stranger) has.

Again, doubtful this is what he means, but we all know MM had some rough ending relationships and he's obviously great at making analogies to express his actions and behaviors. This is just what I thought of when I heard this song :)

This is an anti-war song. He's talking about killing foreigners overseas. "We got guns better run". The song is talking about non-thinking in general. The US military murdering people.

I think this song refers to that we might not want to kill people we know or with our own hands but we are still responsible for people for people dying elsewhere and then we don't give fuck even though we're no less killing them. "We don't need a bigga knife 'cause we got gun" With a knife you need to get your hands dirty and feel how it pokes through the skin and with a gun it's much easier, I guess, much less of a decision. The gun is metaphorical for doing from the distance and not getting your hands dirty in the process. That could refer to support of war in other countries - that we don't need to have more people killed where we see and feel it to kill more people.

Also people very much tend to act without morals when that saves the ones they love. I don't know if he means that but for example in oppressive systems or soldiers in a war, isn't it always said that they think about doing good to their loved ones?