Mass murder

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This article deals with mass killings which are not considered genocide.

Mass murder (massacre) is the act of murdering a large number of people, typically at the same time, or over a relatively short period of time. Mass murder may be committed by individuals or organizations.

The term may not always be applied in relation to the acts of serial killers, who may kill many people, but not necessarily all at the same time.

The largest mass killings in history have been attempts to exterminate entire groups or communities of people, often on the basis of ethnicity or religion. In modern times such events are sometimes described as genocide. Although some consider that "genocide" may exist where there is merely an intention or plan to exterminate a particular group, and that killing is not a necessary condition, by contrast "mass murder" involves the actual killing of a large number of people.

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Mass murder by individuals

Outside of a political context, the term "mass murder" refers to the killing of several people at the same time. Examples would include shooting several people in the course of a robbery, or setting a crowded nightclub on fire. This is an ambiguous term, similar to serial killing and spree killing.

The USA Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a mass murder as "[involving] the murder of four or more victims at one location, within one event."

Most mass murderers fall into one of three categories: family annihilators, individuals with mental defects, and disgruntled workers.

Disgruntled Workers is often a misnomer, as most perpetrators are ex-workers. They are dismissed from their jobs and subsequently turn up heavily armed and slaughter their former colleagues. In the 1980s, when two fired postal workers carried out such massacres in separate incidents in the US, the term "going postal" became synonymous with employees snapping and setting out on murderous rampages. One of the 1980's most famous Disgruntled Worker cases involved computer programmer Richard Farley who, after being fired for stalking one of his co-workers, a woman by the name of Laura Black, returned to his former workplace and shot to death seven of his colleagues, although he failed in his attempt to kill Black herself.

These definitions are evidently outdated and do not take into account the phenomenon of school massacres by students, such as the Columbine High School Massacre, where alienated youths rampage through their schools killing fellow students and teachers alike before turning the guns on themselves.

There are also mass killings that are seemingly unintended, at least in terms of premeditation. In 1990, Julio Gonzales set fire to a New York City nightclub after having a row there with his girlfriend. Eighty-seven people died in the blaze (Gonzalez's girlfriend survived).

Some mass-killers may have financial motives, whereby the killings are either unintended as a result of a robbery going wrong, or are incidental to the primary crime of theft. One of the most bizarre cases was that of Sadamichi Hirasawa, who poisoned to death twelve bank workers by cyanide during a robbery.

Unlike serial killers, there is rarely a sexual motive to individual mass-murderers, with the possible exception of Sylvestre Matuschka, an Austrian man who apparently derived sexual pleasure from blowing up trains with dynamite, ideally with people in them. His lethal sexual fetish claimed twenty two lives before he was caught in 1932.

According to Loren Coleman's book Copycat Effect, publicity about multiple deaths tends to provoke more, whether workplace or school shootings or mass suicides.

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Mass murder by terrorists

In recent years, terrorists have performed acts of mass murder as acts of intimidation, and to draw attention to their causes. Examples of major terrorist incidents involving mass murder include:

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Mass murder by a state

The concept of state-sponsored mass murder covers a range of potential killings. On one hand, there are clear examples of state-sponsored mass-murder, such as:

Some people consider any deaths in combat to be mass murder by the state, though this is not a generally held position.

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Mass murder in warfare

The wrongful killing of large numbers of civilians or prisoners during war is called a war crime, although it may also be genocide if the proper ethnic motivation is present, as in the killings which occurred in the breakaway republics of the former Yugoslavia (e.g. Srebrenica Massacre), in the killing of the Pequot in colonial America or in killing of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of Hindu and Muslim Bengalis by armed forces of Pakistan in 1971.

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Mass murderers

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See also


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External links

de:Massenmord ja:大量虐殺 nl:Massamoordenaar no:Massemorder sv:Massmördare

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