Mass murder

A mass murder (massacre) is an act of murdering of a large number of people all at the same time. Mass murders may be attributed to organizations or to individuals.

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The term "mass murder" normally is not applied to serial killers, who may kill many people, but kill one person (or perhaps several) at a time.

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Unlike the term "murder", the term "mass murder" does not have a legal definition, i.e., it is a moral term of negative connotation. Therefore its usage and applicability depends on the historical context and moral paradigm, which may lead to controversies when describing particular events. For example, in certain pacifist philosophies any war is a mass murder, since any human life is sacred.

Related Topics:
Murder - Moral - Paradigm - Pacifist - War

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The largest mass killings in history have been attempts to exterminate ethnic and other groups; for more about this subject see genocide. This article refers to non-genocidal mass killings.

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Although "genocide" does not necessarily require actual killing, only acting on a plan to exterminate an ethnic group, mass murder by definition involves killing a large number of people.

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