In the GQ thread asking if there were any serial killers who used long range rifles, I mentioned that I thought that military snipers fit the definition. This drew the attention of **engineer_comp_geek ** and others who felt that I was making some sort of moral point and that it didn’t belong in that thread.
so
do military snipers fit literal definition of serial killers? ie: the killing of more than 2 people in a series of discreet events over a significant period of time.
and
2. does pointing this out necessarily attach a moral judgement to the fact?
In doing some research into what is generally considered to be a serial killer I’ve found that contract killers such as “Whitey” Bulger are ususally not considered to be serial killers as well.
3. Should they be?
Serial killers implies murder. Military snipers (presumably) are doing their jobs under legal orders. By the strict definition, you could put any soldier involved in combat or fighter pilot in the same category if military operations fall under the definition. This would mean tens of thousands of combat soldiers in WWII were serial killers.
They are excluded by the definition you gave in the GQ thread:
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more people, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant break between them. Different authorities apply different criteria when designating serial killers, while most set a threshold of three murders, others extend it to four or lessen it to two.
Like others have said, any definition of “serial killer” I can contrive that would include snipers would also encompass most of the military involved in killing bad guys: drone pilots, bomber crews, tank gunners, whoever’s in charge of launching TLAM’s for the Navy, etc.
ETA: and it would be a definition that most people would politely label ‘non-standard’, I would think.
A sniper is just a particular role in the infantry. I don’t see why, if they are serial killers, common infantrymen are also not serial killers. Or fighter pilots with multiple victories. Was The Red Baron a serial killer?
I’d say it’s just the way the term was phrased as ‘serial killer’ instead of ‘serial murderer’ that would lead to any misunderstanding. We apply it to cases of murder, people who could be charged with homicide, not people who take the lives of other in a legal manner. We don’t call hunters serial killers either.
I think your definition of serial killer is off. The common definition is “A serial killer is defined as someone who commits more than three murders over a period that spans more than one month” which I believe is based on the definition formerly used by the FBI. After poking around a bit on google, the FBI apparently now defines it as a minimum of two murders with no reference to motive or time frame.
Murder is defined as “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another” and this is where your definition goes south. Military killings are not unlawful, and therefore are not murder.
Yes. By calling snipers serial killers, you are saying that legal military actions are murder, which is a very odd thing to say if you aren’t trying to make a moral statement about military killing.
There’s actually a fair amount of debate about this one, even by law enforcement professionals, criminologists, and psychologists. The main argument against is that contract killers are doing a job for money, not for their own personal motives or personal gratification. Personally, I think that while these killers are doing the job for money, I think they get some personal gratification out of it, so my opinion is that they should be considered serial killers. Another point to be made is that contract killers don’t decide who or when to kill.
(to be clear, this is just my opinion as a poster. Even though I moderated the thread that spawned this, I am not acting as a moderator in this thread)
The meaning of the term “serial killer” in common usage clearly refers to unlawful killing. So it would be more technically precise if the phrase were “serial murderer” - but that’s just a quirk of language for you. That’s what it means.
The other semantic element that I think is present in common usage is “usually in service of abnormal psychological gratification” (per Wikipedia). In additional to the legality of the killing, I think this element also excludes soldiers. It would also exclude professional contract killers and terrorists per se.
But there is almost certainly overlap. It may well be that some psychopaths who take psychological gratification from killing may be drawn to active military duty; and that some terrorists and perhaps most contract killers are also sadistic psychopaths. I recall that in Jon Ronson’s book The Psychopath Test there was an example of a female psychopath in the U.K. who (unsuccessfully) tried to find a legal outlet for her homicidal tendencies by joining the military.
Well, obviously this moves beyond talking about the generally accepted definition of the term “serial killer”, or even the usual legal/moral meaning of “murder” in general. In a philosophical debate about whether all war is equivalent to mass murder, it’s probably also rather important to consider the degree of culpability of the soldier whose finger pulls the trigger relative to the political leaders who make the bigger decisions. And come to that, whether killing is ever justified.
I (like Herr von Richthofen) don’t differentiate types of killing, but I do recognize that society has said that it will not prosecute certain types of killing, and I don’t disagree with that.
I think we are lying to ourselves, however, if we don’t admit that we are asking soldiers to commit murder on our behalf.
As others have mentioned, this question seems to be the crux of the situation.
For me, murder is the killing of a human (we’ll leave whether non humans can be murdered for another thread). Intentional or not; legal or not. If you take the life of a human* you have murdered them. Even if society has asked you to do it. Even if the circumstances are such that society has said that it will not punish you, and even if I agree that you should not be punished, it is still, to me, murder. This may seem like I’m playing word games; being overly pedantic in my definition. But I see the loss of life, any life under any situation, to be a tragedy. I dont recognize “good” killing versus “bad” killing. However justified you or I may find a killing, it should never be considered anything other than murder, it should never be praised, it should never be celebrated. A human being is dead.
*as for your example, an accident where people die is, while certainly a tragedy, neither murder or killing. Unless it can be shown that the accident was caused by the reckless negligence of someone.
Well, you just created the need for a new word to replace “murder”, since we as a society have to distinguish between lawful and unlawful killing. Not sure what the point of that is. It’s like saying: I consider blue and green to be the same. OK, so new we either need a new word for blue or for green. Thanks!