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

Question

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

Answer 1

"Assassin" and "Assassins" redirect here. For other uses, see Assassin (disambiguation).

Assassination is the targeted killing of a high-profile person.[1] An added distinction between assassination and other forms of killing is that the assassin (one who performs an assassination) usually has an ideological or political motivation, though many assassins (especially those not part of an organization) also demonstrate insanity. Other motivations may be money (contract killing), revenge, or a military operation.

The assassination euphemism targeted killing (or extrajudicial punishment / execution) is also used for the government-sanctioned killing of opponents.[2] 'Assassination' itself, along with terms such as 'terrorist' and 'freedom fighter', may in this context be considered a loaded term, as it implies an act in which the proponents of such killings may consider them justified or even necessary.[2]

Assassination may also be used as a form of hyperbole, as in the phrase character assassination, meaning an attempt to impugn another's character, and thus kill, or "assassinate" his reputation and credibility.

Answer 2

This is a good questions.  We are all discussing it over the breakfast table.

I think for an assassination the motive has to be about sending a message to the world with political interest in mind.

Via another forum  this what I've found.

The media is not longer as careful as they use to be with regard to word choice. TV or radio peoples use the wrong word in many too situations.



I agree with you definition of assassination, & use it that way.

The World Book Dictionary uses the word assassination to apply especially to the murder of a public person, but it can also be used to kill someone by hiring another to kill by a sudden or secret attack.



Some background info on the word ’assassin’ is derived from the Italian word ’asassino’, which was taken from the Arabic word ’hashshashin’ meaning ’hashish eaters’. This was popularized by the Ismaili fanatics, one of the more murderous sects of Islam. If you recall the VA Tech killings the murder had Ismaili Axe (Son of Sacrifice) tatooed on his arm.



The Old Man of the Mountain*, use to get young Arabs stoned out of their minds on hashish & take them to his mountain castle. The castle was located somewhere in the Syrian mountains during the 11th & 12th centuries. Here there was an overabundance of cool water, trees, grass, & beautiful maidens and told them this is what Paradise is like & you can enter Paradise by being killed in the service of Allah. Well, these kids were use to the hot desert sands & a shortage of water & they believed him. They got stoned again & he returned them to where they came from. This stunt was to erase the fear of dying, so they would not fear death on one of their assignments to kill.



* He has a name, but I’ve only seen it once & I’ve forgotten it. In his line of work an alias was needed, since Arabic names indicate your geographical location & parentage.



Theoretically the target was suppose to awake to find a rice cake next to his bed, as a warning he would be killed soon.

Answer 3

I don't think it's a matter of the importance of the person being assassinated.  I think an assassination is referring to the manner in which the person is killed.  Such as in a gang assassination.  

Answer 4

The wrords literally mean the same thing. The word assasination was coined when Lincoln was killed. The word murdered was considered too inflammatory given the conditions in the country at the time so this was used as an acceptable substitute and has been used to describe murders of important people ever since.How important a person must be would depend upon the person writing the story.  

Answer 5

Usually, you are assassinated because someone deeply disagrees with your ideas and policies, and you are in a position to enforce those ideas and policies on a large number of people.  The same person getting shot during a robbery or being found in bed with someone's wife isn't an assassination, it's generally a murder :-)  

Answer 6

There's no set amount of 'presteige' really because you usually hear more about famous people either voicing their opinion who can really just be regular people like you and I or it could be a president or politician assassinated by an extremist for one political party over another. I hope this helped to answer your question.

Answer 7

Good question.  I have wondered this myself...

It used to be Kings presidents etc were murdered. Then After Dr MJ King it seems it became applied to more widespread politicians.

You dont hear of a movie star being assassinated murdered yes.

As for gang assassination....  I hadnt heared it used in that context.

But from a quick look as to who has been assassinated it appears to me that it is used to denote the murder of a person with some kind of political view different from that of the murderer. By that I mean the person was killed for political reasons.

So it could depend on how famous your political views are not how famous you are.

Answer 8

I think that assassination implies a political intent or reason for the murder.  If you think about it, that, more than how important the person is, determines how it is referred to.

Like John Lennon was murdered even though he was famous because the guy who did it wasn't trying to make a political statement with the killing.

Answer 9

as far as i know its not so much the importance of the person as much as their occupation, for instance if someone is ''important'' a ceo of a company or a wealthy land owner for instance they would still be considered murdered if ''hit' in a contract style killing, but if a person in a high level of government, politics, the judiciary system or the military [as in general/ dictator] is murdered then it is often considered an assassination, heck of a interesting question by the way, made me stop and think! thanks :)

Answer 10

If your name is Obama or Osama, you are more than likely, not safe, at least from the trash I've seen about this c**p in the biased tv news.  

Answer 11

i dont believe it is how important they are it is for what reason they wre killed like for power purposes