@WW, a deadly killing by a police officer, when warranted by the law, is not murder according to the definition I'm familiar with: "the unlawful premeditated killing of one person by another". While it is by no means good, it is neither premeditated nor unlawful. Whether it is "unlawful" according to a higher law is debatable; but on the face of it, that's not the case.

@elliotsvensson By that logic, all you have to do is revise your legal system to state "slavery is when you make someone wear purple pajamas," and then put people in cages and force them to plant and harvest your fields working 90 hours per week without pay. They are not slaves as long as you do not make them wear purple pajamas, and what you are doing is not unlawful on the face of it. Fortunately, morals and ethics do not work that way. The letter of the law is not always valid. Police do murder people, and it is murder, even on the face of it.

@Aaron, please give a definition for "murder" that you are happy with.

@elliotsvensson The one provided by WW is not what I would use, but I don't mind going with that. Personally, I would prefer that we just call a space a space no matter how one defines it, as a rose by any other name.... But if you insist, how about: "Taking the life of another person, whether by intent or negligence, except when necessary to prevent the other person from doing the same." Even that is not perfect, but it captures most of the essence succinctly. And by that, many police actions are murder. "I thought he was pointing a gun at me!" when I bring out a phone is not justified.

@elliotsvensson To be fair to you Elliot, I do admit my previous comment cherry picks one of the most obvious and best examples favoring my point, and that they are not all that simple. There is a line somewhere, and the exact position of the line might be arguable, but I don't think it is arguable that police murder many people every year. Whether they murder more or less than your average Joe, I don't know, but my point is merely that you cannot dismiss the many police murders as non-murders so easily.

@Aaron, I don't think it's good enough. Drivers who get into accidents are not murderers.

@elliotsvensson wrote "Drivers who get into accidents are not murderers." Not necessarily murders, but sometimes they are. And some of them are found guilty of vehicular manslaughter. Obviously someone in an innocent accidental collision is not a murderer, and my above definition doesn't suggest they are. But a driver who results in another's death either by intent or by negligence has murdered (or "manslaughtered," if you prefer), and the law reflects that.

@Aaron, I brought up the example of car accidents because it does fall within the definition that you offered above. Can you make a succinct adjustment that captures these obvious cases where the driver isn't a murderer?

@elliotsvensson Perhaps, if you show how it falls within the definition above. "whether by intent or by negligence" I fail to see how a vehicle accident is necessarily either intent or negligent, unless you are being very loose with the term "negligence." You could make a case for "I did not notice that I was in a turn-only lane because there were lots of signs and I missed that one" being neglect, but most people would dismiss such an argument. If you want to be pedantic about what neglect is, then feel free to revise my "intent or negligence" to "intent or gross negligence."

@Aaron, do you think that the distinction between murder and manslaughter is significant?

@elliotsvensson Significant in that they are not exactly the same and should have different penalties. But not significant from an ethical point of view when all you're trying to decide is "is that action bad or not?" When deciding whether a cop shooting someone for taking out a phone (or failing to follow orders, or whatever) is bad an punishable or is acceptable, for that the distinction between manslaughter and murder is not significant no. That is, if the question is merely "is it ok?" then the answer to "what kind of not-ok is it?" is not significant.

@elliotsvensson So, if your main point is nothing more than "I claim it is not technically murder," but you are not suggesting that police killing people is always ok, then we have both wasted our time. Also, if you want those kinds of discussions, law.SE might be a better place for them than politics.SE. Politically, almost nobody gives a hoot what the formal crime is that a criminal is labeled with as long as justice is served. Legally maybe, but this is not a legal discussion or site.

As a reminder, let's repeat the comment that got us here:

In many places if a police officer considers you to be a threat to their safety they can execute you without trial. These are by most definitions of the words slavery and murder. – W W

@Aaron, "technically murder" is stupid: I'm only interested in "murder" or "not murder".

So are you going to dwell on the use of "definitions" now? If not, what is your point?

If yes, then I suppose I see why you would go on about it.

However, I think many people would try to define murder in such a way that it includes police brutality which leads to death.

@Aaron, police do not have a "license to kill" like James Bond... James Bond's license was to kill somebody, like that guy in Rogue One, if he felt like it would advance his interests.

And if someone offers up a formal definition of murder upon your request, if it does not include a case that person thinks is murder and does include some case that person thinks is not murder, then all that means is the person needs to try to more carefully define the word. I would suggest the definition is not 100% successful, not that the murderous action is not murder because of a failing in our attempted definition.

Cassian Andor, who thought it was OK to kill rebels (friendlies) if it would result in an explosion that killed his enemies... plus he killed the guy (another friendly) who gave him the information.

@Aaron, do you think that there exists some definition for murder which will always identify murder?

@elliotsvensson And yet there are cases abounding where police shoot people who were no threat to them, and even where the person was not trying to appear threatening, and all the police have to do is say "I'm justified because I felt threatened." I think most people agree that is murder.

To your last comment: I'm not sure. Maybe if you make a very long and drawn out definition with lots of conditions, caveats, etc.. But even then, I don't know, and even if it did, it is (arguably) not in the best interest of society to over-complicate it like that. Keep it simple.

But the cases where police have shot people for getting out their phones, shot kids who were out in their yard playing with toy guns, shot people watering their yards using the pistol-grip style water sprayers, and shot people merely for possessing a weapon... they might not all be murder, but lots of them are.

Such as the case of a deaf man whittling wood with a sharp knife while sitting on a bench downtown. Police yelled at him many times to drop the knife, but he didn't since he obviously couldn't hear them. In fact, it is not even obvious that the man even knew the police were there since he never looked up from his work. And they shot him for refusing to drop the "weapon". And they get away with that stuff. That's at least manslaughter, even if you don't want to call it murder.

@Aaron, I'm not saying it's not murder! I'm saying that there exists a place in law where police use of deadly force (i.e. killing somebody) is not murder.

And this is not a mere technicality: it's not murder in such a case.

@Aaron, there exists a place in ethics, in morality, in human relations, etc. etc. where police use of deadly force is not murder.

And the cases where people have medical reasons that they cannot be held in a certain position. Police have ignored the cries of people shouting about how they cannot breathe or have some other problem with how the police are forcing them to lie down with their hands behind their back. And the police have sometimes responded by holding them down harder and killing them, and writing it up that the person was resisting arrest.

@Aaron, sometimes policemen and policewomen commit murder. I don't disagree with this at all.

@elliotsvensson If that is all you claim, then we have little to no difference in opinion.

I thought I tried to say so far that it is not "all or nothing"

@Aaron, but the definition for "murder" is not complicated.

Sorry, for murder.

Not "murder".

Sometimes it is murder, sometimes it is not, and the previous comment that brought this whole thing up suggests that murder is government sanctioned. That does not mean it's James Bond style license to kill, but it certainly is sanctioned. There was another case where a cop killed someone, and the cop's partner even testified against him as a witness saying "I, as the other cop in the room, did not feel at all threatened, and I do not believe the need for deadly force was present." Yet ...

... Yet that cop got a free pass because of how our laws are written, the cop was found to be within his rights.

And my quote is not exact, it was just the gist of what I remember about that case.

@elliotsvensson As for the exact dictionary definition of murder, or the exact legal definition for my state or nation, I'll take your word for it that it is not complicated. I'm at work right now, and I'd rather not have "define murder" in my search history here.

@Aaron, it's really not complicated, but it stands or falls on the notion of government authority over people's lives. If there is no such thing, then it is impossible to separate lawful killing, as during an execution or war, or act of self defense, from unlawful killing.

But that does not necessarily mean that the government's definition or the court's definition, or how they want to view it, is necessarily the ethically or morally correct way to view it, at least not from some peoples' point of view. However, instead of opening up that can of worms, I'll just say that I jumped in as I thought you were suggesting that all court-justified cop killing was not murder, or at least something along those lines. But now I see that the original comment you ...

... replied to could be viewed as suggesting "All cop killings without a court hearing are murder," which I agree with you is also incorrect.

Also, at the risk of cracking the lid on that can of worms I said I didn't want to open, I will say that I vehemently oppose the idea that the government rightfully possesses whatever authority over us that it decides to exert, and that we consent to agree to such authority by the mere act of remaining here and allowing ourselves to be governed by it. I assert such is nonsense and has only a peg leg to stand on...

@Aaron, of course. Otherwise, there could be no such thing as "an unjust law"!

... I'm not saying that's what you meant by your last comment, as you may or may not think that way, BUT I have had multiple people suggest that my previous sentence is indeed how it works, so I just wanted to throw that out there.

As when I hear people use terms like you did in that "government authority over people's lives" comment, that's often where it goes.

And I have indeed had multiple people insist that there is no such thing as an unjust law, and one guy used to literally laugh in my face when I said otherwise.

Glad to see it's all worked out. Sorry we jumped on opposite sides of the assumption that the other was at the complete opposite far end of the discussion point's spectrum. That's something that I believe is a problem with many debates, so I am annoyed at myself for having done so. Hope the rest of your day is better.

@Aaron, no hard feelings. I suspected early on that we weren't really in dispute about things.