How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of murdered?

So I noticed this particular forum has just reached 28,000 threads, WOW!!!

This isn't the reason I am posting this however.

It occured to me that there have been many prominent figures who have been killed over the centuries, very sad, but in some instances worthy.

My main question though is as the title.

How important does a person have to be, before thay are considered assassinated instead of murdered?

In my opinion whoever is bumped off and for whatever reason has been murdered. When did assassination become vogue?

I don't think we use the word "assassinated" anymore. We usually just hear about:

"Drug overdose"
"Cardiac Arrest"
"Uncertain Bullet Wounds near the ears and eyes".

Originally posted by ThinkingCap
I don't think we use the word "assassinated" anymore. We usually just hear about:

"Drug overdose"
"Cardiac Arrest"
"Uncertain Bullet Wounds near the ears and eyes".

Haha, you are right.

Or the former dictator was found deep underground, so we brought him out, waited a few years and then diposed of him (usually by hanging).

Doesn't the motive of the murder come into play? For instance, if you were a tourist in Mexico and were shot by a drug gang at the border during a gun fight with police, you were murdered.

If you were the mayor or police chief of the town and were not going along with the status quo, as per the drug lords you get assassinated by the drug gang.

Assassinated is used to make it sound more cool in the media or in documentaries. Both are the same its just using different words for different purposes.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978


Assassination is a subset category of murder. Assassination is murder done for political reasons. Has nothing to do with the person's status.

To clarify, for example, the 9/11 victims in the towers were murdered because, although the overall attack (by whoever ) was done for political reasons, the people themselves individually were not targeted because of political reasons. Had one of them been targeted individually for political reasons, that one person would have been assassinated along with the others who were murdered.

Great question,
I suppose it is all down to how the death/murder/assassination is reported.
Depends how the reporting media wants to portray it.
Its also down to personal opinion and how you view the death, which is influenced by the media etc....
Were Martin Luther King, JFK, or Anwar Sadat, assassinated or murdered?, and what were the benefits that their deaths accrued to various parties?

Depends on your point of view.
Good thought provoking post OP, its a fine line and dependent on perception and politics.
Thanks

Originally posted by HumansEh
Were Martin Luther King, JFK, or Anwar Sadat, assassinated or murdered?

All were assassinated for political reasons.

Okay, so it is essentially for political reasons.

Which then requires me to ask the question, why do politicians think they are something special?

In my eyes murder is murder. They were murdered plain and simple.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978


Why is assassination special? Murder is murder (as you said). It's just a more descriptive term for the same thing.

ETA: Politics is not just politicians. If you were killed for some political reason, then it would be an assassination. I don't think your friends and family would find it any more "sexy" though. You would still be dead.

You don't have to be important at all:

They assassinate - we murder - they get done for embezzlement - we get done for theft! SAME DIFFERENCE - one has money the other hasn't!

reply to post by Cobaltic1978


[Quote]Definition of ASSASSINATE
transitive verb
1
: to injure or destroy unexpectedly and treacherously
2
: to murder (a usually prominent person) by sudden or secret attack often for political reasons

Definition of MURDER
1
: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought
2
a : something very difficult or dangerous
b : something outrageous or blameworthy [/Quote]

I've had this question too, so I thought I'd ask the ever-knowing dictionary. It didn't quite answer the question of course. Personally, I don't give a hoot what word is used when. Murder and Assassination seem synonymous, but Assassination seems to put more slant to the 'reasons' that might be why a life was taken. I understand it as such:

If someone was to kill you because they didn't like your face, your spoke bad about their momma, or any number of asinine reasons.. Well, you got murdered. Now, if you've become well known for any reasons (perhaps even just on the internet), and you talk of things some want to remain secret, Take steps to abolish something wrong, Take steps to abolish something good, Attempt to educate, or was too good, or was too bad; And then you got killed.. You've been assassinated.

Either way, Dead..

All that I have been able to figure out is, if a person died of natural causes
the government must have killed them.
And I can't believe the number of important people that assassinated themselves with suicide.

reply to post by Inquisitive1


Thanks for the reply.

It's not that I couldn't be bothered to look at the definitions in the dictionary, it's just that I find it typically elitist that the word assassination has come to be.

Of course it means how much money you have before your death becomes an assassination and not plain old murder.

Thanks.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978


The Definitions were for my benefit. Didn't mean for it to come off as placed there for any other reason

And you're right. Seems the difference is simply money. Murder for asinine reasons, or Assassination for asinine reasons and the ability to pay for it..

what about a child that is not popular in the least but roman catholics trace parents lineage suddenly they decide kid is an omen, one of their priests shoots child in the head with gun bought on street.

has he been assassinated?

a person does not have to be important at all to be assassinated. Like when a man's wife pays someone to have him killed. It could be because she's a gold digger. It could be because she just doesn't like him anymore. It is still an assassination.

If somebody is paid to kill you, it's an assassination. If someone actively seeks to kill you based on political, religious or monetary reasons, he/she is an assassin.

I have had my character assassinated but never have I had my character murdered.

So in having being used as not just murder but to ruin is the key. Someone assassinates a prominent figure to ruin something they have done or will do or have begun.

IMHO of course and those are many.