abe smith

It is not any individual's business to define "murder". Hence individuals's speculations & opinions here at this thread (as Oxymoron points out ^^^^ a few posts previous here) are interesting but not germane.
Like other legal concepts/definitions (e.g. of crimes, or criteria for status >>> "voting age" etc all those labels), "murder" is a legal term, produced by HUMAN legislators's *legislation*.
There is NOT any abstract Platonic "Idea in the Sky" definition/meaning for this *legal* term. Its definition/meaning is MAN-MADE. Hence the definitions of such legal terms vary depending on what accepted human authority is doing the defining.
Members of religious sects (sic) may not LIKE this ^^^ primary fact; but it is true, none the less. For example the Pope legislates/defines "sins" = religious crimes ONLY for those humanbeings who accept his/"the (nonexistent) Church"'s authority to do that. And, similarly for (other) always-human
legislative bodies.
ALL POSITIVE LAW IS MAN-MADE. (>>>Fight on.) Of course, (nearly? ) all religions deny this; and assert that their deity made the Laws...... An assertion they cannot prove.

Keith Russell

Greetings:

'Murder' is the intentional killing of one human being by another, when the victim was in no way a threat.

Keith.

Shadownought

I did? When did I do that?

Psycho Economist

Murder is characterized by:
1. Killing a person
2. unlawfully (i.e. without an affirmative defense, like self defense)
3. with the intent to kill them.

Not necessarily pre-meditatedly so. If I'm at a bar, and the guy next to me says he's been doing my wife (note: I'm not married and I don't frequent bars) and I rip his heart out of his body then and there: that would be second-degree murder (intent to kill, but no pre-meditation).

If I wait for him to come out sitting in the back seat of his car, and strangle him to death, that would be first degree murder (finding out which car is his, and waiting for him to come out are both pre-meditative).

Manslaughter is characterized by:
1. Killing a person, unlawfully
2. with intent to harm, but not kill.

If I get in a fist fight with a guy, hit him in the head, and set off an anuerism neither of us knew he had, and he dies: that's manslaughter (intent to harm, but to kill). Again, in some states, pre-meditation can seperate two degrees of manslaughter

Involuntary manslaughter is characterized by killing a person unlawfully, without intent to harm, but when acting in an reckless, negligent or otherwise irresponsible way. In some states it's actually called "reckless homicide".

Mr. Sammi

Keith Russell : 'Murder' is the intentional killing of one human being by another, when the victim was in no way a threat.

Keith, Do you think it is possible that you need to rethink your position in the light that the mafia ends people's lives who are a threat to them, including policemen, firemen, politicians, housewives and judges.


Sammi Na Boodie (I hope I am not a threat to your intellect)

Keith Russell

Mr. Sammi:

Of course, 'threat' still needs to be defined.

I'll give it some more thought, but I think one could argue that the Mafia is the threat, not the people murdered by them.

Keith.

Psycho Economist

Every state has its own definition of what kind of threat (to one's life) an assailant must be, and what alternatives one must exhaust before lethal force can be used to deffend oneself. "Threat" is defined, it just varies from state to state.

Sorry if that doesn't sound phillisophical for you, but I'm content with American legal definitions of murder.

7thangel

SUICIDE is surely not a murder, nobody was convicted of suicide.

winstonjen

On the euthanasia flame war. You said, "Murder is defined as the killing of a human being out of spite. How innocent they are is irrelevant."

Good definition, Sam.

7thangel

How could you explain "directly most affected" when people on just mere knowledge of such event can have a big impact on their society. Such as making actions to rally against it and shoot doctors who performs such, ie abortion?

So I guess, the shooter will come out justified.