What do you think are the main reasons for murder?

I will say greed but could be a toss up with revenge.

Rage, jealousy, and mental illness are feelings that can get out of control. I see them as more powerful than greed or vengence or Divine Voices in one’s head.

There is a thin line between love and hate.
There seems to be an increase in husbands killing their wife and kids lately.

Some deep sense of a person’s self is threatened, I think , when someone commits murder, like ”I’M Jane’s husband!” or “How dare they fire me! Who am I without this job?!

Like Allen Andrade in Colorado, who murdered Angie Zapata because Allen’s sense of himself as a “straight” man was threatened by Angie being a transwoman, so he externalized that panic onto her.

The most common reasons? Probably the ones you said. I bet the most common one is revenge (gangs, jealous husbands, and wartime death). Though, if it’s serial murder, I’ve heard it’s more of a power trip. It’s just the crazed beast inside hungering for the power… again, so I’ve heard.

I worked in the prison system for many years and I have to stick with greed. Greed for someones money, drugs, social staus, or power. Or in the case of some gang shooting the greed for a higher status within the gang.

I agree with the above, greed and revenge. After all, everyone always wants more, and has to be the one with the last word.

You can’t go wrong with payback or plain old revenge.

@chyna
And often it’s something like money which causes a man to feel so powerless and ineffective it leads to homicide/suicide which seems crazy..and of course it is.

I think that most crimes of passion have to do with an over identification with self and most importantly an identification with a self that has been injured by another. There is a type of blindness that overcomes someone when they are obsessed with a thought or idea.

A type of twisted logic implies that the end result must be the elimination of another so that one’s ego can be vindicated. The only problem is that whether it is one or 6 million it can never offer comfort because the premise is faulty. Namely the erroneous belief that one can do to another without ultimately injuring oneself.

I only know of one reason for murder: to kill someone.

sex and money

What about if it was a mistake, like if I was handling a gun and it accidentally went off or if a guy ran in front of my car. That’s still murder, but not intentional. Also, if someone else is a threat to you, and you use self defense, you’re still killing someone else. Also, the death penalty is murder, but that could possibly be classified under revenge.

@justwannaknow
This assumes that those incarcerated can understand what drives them to act the way they do. I would concur that they can’t and thus their incarceration.

it absolutely depends.

there are some murderers with an anti-social personality disorder – they feel no empathy/sympathy for others, and don’t regret it. they don’t often have a specific reason to kill – more like a lack of reason not to kill.

then there are people who do it for an actual purpose, whether it’s justified or not.

and i think a really common one is just an act of rage in a fit of passion a la the ladies in Chicago (the musical, not the band obviously (; )

Lions, Tigers and Bears

Women driven crimes (finding them cheating, women telling men “go ahead, hit me”) to people on cocaine.

@Triiiple – I don’t know if those are reasons for murder so much as they’re plot elements of a two-part episode of Miami Vice, dude! Guest-starring Phil Collins, of course.

And women are pretty good at murdering, too.

Anger and contempt.

people asking questions