Let me ask you, if I had you tied to a chair and gave you the option:
I can put two bullets in you, or I can hit you with my gun until you’re dead.
Which would you choose?
You're taking the metaphor way to literally. I get it- you have a ferocious hatred for the notion of disloyalty, and you can probably come up with all kinds of horrible ways to kill them.
Point is: Deal with traitors first, with extreme force, then you can engage the enemy. That's the "big picture" application of this idiom.
I guess more than anything I’m just trying to understand why you think “extreme force” (your words) applies more so to two gunshots than to beating someone to death with a gun.
Like, honestly, I think a better option still is to put two shots into the traitor, THEN beat him until he's dead, and then leave the enemy locked in the room (prison cell) alive.
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