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@Justin,

Justin wrote:

Most people who try to kill another don't know each other very well.

That's actually not true according to FBI statistics. Just quickly according to 2005 data, of 14,860 murder victims only 2070 (14%) were strangers, as compared with 2436 (16%) who were either related or boyfriend/girlfriend. That leaves 3630 (24%) who were friends, acquaintances, neighbors, or employers/employees, or a full 40% who knew their victim personally.

The remaining 6724 (45%) are those for whom the relationship data were not available for this analysis, and naturally a big proportion of those would also be situations in which murderer/victim knew one another.

Now, you said "don't know one another well", and the FBI doesn't qualify the "well" aspect of it. But one theme that's clear is that murder is NOT random, it mostly happens among people who know one another to begin with.

Expanded Homicide Data Table 9 - Crime in the United States 2005

@Aedes,

Aedes;23309 wrote:

That's actually not true according to FBI statistics. Just quickly according to 2005 data, of 14,860 murder victims only 2070 (14%) were strangers, as compared with 2436 (16%) who were either related or boyfriend/girlfriend. That leaves 3630 (24%) who were friends, acquaintances, neighbors, or employers/employees, or a full 40% who knew their victim personally.

The remaining 6724 (45%) are those for whom the relationship data were not available for this analysis, and naturally a big proportion of those would also be situations in which murderer/victim knew one another.

Now, you said "don't know one another well", and the FBI doesn't qualify the "well" aspect of it. But one theme that's clear is that murder is NOT random, it mostly happens among people who know one another to begin with.

Expanded Homicide Data Table 9 - Crime in the United States 2005

In defense of Justin (not that he necessarily needs help with that), he said "most people who try to kill another", not "most people that get murdered in the United States". The numbers you give don't account for what happens in countries other than America, and they also don't account for soldiers in wars.

@Aedes,

Aedes;23309 wrote:

Justin wrote:

Most people who try to kill another don't know each other very well.

That's actually not true according to FBI statistics...

(I wonder how some government goon would describe "knowing" someone? What amazing depths of insight and 'self knowledge' might be revealed? *__- )
And actually is true according to them to whom 'knowing another well' means a discarding of aparent distinctions and differences (related to Perspective only) and finding, beneath, Oneness. They is us! Not many would deliberately (if a 'choice') harm 'self'. A silly notion at best. So, from this Perspective, it is very true, that the better i understood/know 'others', the better i understand 'self', One.

"All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense." -Robert Anton Wilson

Perspective..

@Deftil,

Deftil;23327 wrote:

The numbers you give don't account for what happens in countries other than America, and they also don't account for soldiers in wars.

You think it's any different in other countries, especially where cultural mores like feuds and honor still allow some degree of homicide? I'd imagine that most murder in other countries is yet more likely to happen between family members and acquaintances than here.

War is a special circumstance in that soldiers are being used as tools and not independent agents. So while each individual soldier of course is the ultimate arbiter of his actions the fact remains that they do what they're told. Thus, the situation of war mostly avoids the original question in this thread. The soldier who just shot at you is acting as an agent of his command system, and you as a target are acting as an agent of his enemy. That's completely different than an act of murder or attempted murder in which the murderer's independent agency and in what context he regards the victim is the central issue.

@Aedes,

Aedes;23691 wrote:

You think it's any different in other countries, especially where cultural mores like feuds and honor still allow some degree of homicide? I'd imagine that most murder in other countries is yet more likely to happen between family members and acquaintances than here.

War is a special circumstance in that soldiers are being used as tools and not independent agents. So while each individual soldier of course is the ultimate arbiter of his actions the fact remains that they do what they're told. Thus, the situation of war mostly avoids the original question in this thread. The soldier who just shot at you is acting as an agent of his command system, and you as a target are acting as an agent of his enemy. That's completely different than an act of murder or attempted murder in which the murderer's independent agency and in what context he regards the victim is the central issue.

Sorry for the confusion... I wasn't making any claim regarding what happens in other countries or whether or not war is a "special circumstance"; I was simply meaning to clarify what the man said, what your statisitics show, and the fact that they are not identical.

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