I would not say all assassinations are murders either. Murder automatically has negative connotations. It would not have been murder to kill adolf eichmann (or hitler) in 1940; it would have been heroic charity. But it would be assassination nonetheless.
there’s overlap between the two categories, but one is not a subclass of the other. Murder has definitive negative associations, and assassination clearly is “higher profile”. Beyond those loose boundaries, I’m sure everyone on this thread has their own opinion as to specific definitions of the two.
I swear the master did a column on this, but damned if I can find it. He pointed out a dog catcher can be assassinated, if it’s because he’s the dog catcher, and a president can be murdered, if it’s because of some personal reason.
Mark David Chapman didn’t know Lennon, he killed him for the role he played.
As they used to say where I grew up in Texas: “Some people just need killin’.” I don’t agree the word “murder” necessarily has negative connotations; just in the vast majority of cases. Assassinating Hitler would have been murder, but I would certainly have been okay with it. But his followers would not have been okay with it, so there would have been some people for whom his “murder” definitely would have been viewed negatively. I don’t think one can judge if it’s “murder” or not based on one’s own personal feelings about it.
If it’s intentional, it’s murder. Whether it’s an assassination may sometimes be open to interpretation.
I believe you are conflating “kill” with “murder”. I have never heard “murder” with any neutral or positive connotations. “That man needs to be murdered”, or “He’s a hero- murdered some people who really deserved it”. Do those sentences sound at all reasonable to you?
I mean, unless we’re talking legal definitions. That’s a totally different story. Then murder is anything intentional, divided (based on premeditation or spontaneity, like “crimes of passion”) into degrees. But the definition of murder in law has no bearing on the different connotations of murder and assassination, one of which is sometimes justifiable or justified, and one of which is always “bad”.
I’m confusing nothing. Hitler deserved to be murdered, and many would have proudly done it. But believe me, the good folks where I grew up were indeed saying, with every implication the word implied, that “some people just need murderin’.” "They just used the word “killin’,” but it was understood what was what. Perhaps you can see why I left the place.
But I think in this thread we are talking legal definitions. Murder is intentional, otherwise it’s manslaughter or some such. Whether it’s also an assassination or not may or may not be in question.
Just because a killing is intentional,does not nessarily mean it’s murder. Had Stalin sent a sniper to assassinate Hitler it would not have been murder.
We’ll have to agree to disagree. I’m not a lawyer, but if the the sniper had been arrested, I believe the charge would have been “murder,” not “assassination.”
That’s assuming they wanted to do it because of the abominations that he was causing (which I believe was the case). But if they just wanted to take power from him it would not necessarily be heroic. They might have just continued the same policies.
Police will often book you on any charge they can, jusy to hold you, and let the prosecutors work out the actual charges later.
I feel that Ruby assassinated him if it was political revenge. But if it was on orders from the Mob (or others) then it was murder.
I believe federal officials have harsher penalties for their harmers. I seem to recall that assassinating the President is a distinct crime, though I have no cite and could easily be wrong.
I’ll have to concede that if in assassinations it’s a military target by a soldier in uniform, then that cannot be counted as murder. But that’s the only exception I can think of to “assassination” being “murder.”