Murder is the unlawful killing of another human being, especially with malice aforethought. There are situations where you can commit homicide and suffer no disgrace. Self-defense against an immediate, physical threat, for example. But murder crosses the line. It confounds me that so many Americans seem eager to mitigate the loathsome actions of the criminals who killed thousands of people in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.
Murder defies reason.
The attack on New York's World Trade Center was nothing more or less than murder. The perpetrators voluntarily and deliberately targeted innocent civilians with their violence. And that crosses the line. The students who killed fifteen people at Columbine High School in 1999 were murderers. The men who bombed Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995 were murderers.