As you’re probably aware, the news has been full of news about killings lately… murders in many metropolitan areas are up by a fairly high percentage so far this year. Internationally, several prominent people have been murdered/assassinated.
I’ve often wondered just exactly what the difference in murder and assassination really was. Most dictionary definitions suggest that “assassination” is usually associated with a well-known victim. Several sources indicate that assassination is almost exclusively reserved for murders in which someone is being killed primarily due to their title or role in an organization or movement. I think this is probably often, but certainly not always, true.
I guess you could probably say that every assassination is a murder, but not every murder would be considered an assassination.
The legal definition of murder in the United States includes killing with (1) “malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, such as robbery or arson (first-degree murder)” and (2) “murder by intent, but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder.)” If I read this correctly, all assassinations are first-degree murders. It’s interesting, that while I could find a “legal” definition of murder, I couldn’t find any “legal” definition of assassination.
Obviously, there are many opinions as to what constitutes an assassination. Usually assassination is used when someone important is murdered, but assassination isn’t based on “importance.” It is the removal of someone because of who they are, what they do or what they know. If someone is murdered for their wallet, or their car, that would not be an assassination. Assassination isn’t about how important the victim was — it’s about the motive for the murder.
Unfortunately, assassinations have become commonplace for us — we hear about them from around the globe on a more or less regular basis. Most of us can tick off a list of people that have been assassinated without having to think too hard… Julius Caesar, Malcom X, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Garfield, Huey Long, Medgar Evers, etc.
Often, news of these deaths is so shocking that people can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing, wearing or eating when they learned person had been murdered.
Assassinations have become (an unwelcome) part of our world. I’ve heard it said that assassination is the extreme form of censorship… probably true.
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