Not just uncaught murderers, there are a lot of people who have killed without legally being considered murderers.

People who killed people in accidents such as driving accidents or hunting accidents

People who killed in self defense

Soldiers who killed enemy soldiers

Executioners

Police officers who have killed on duty

Doctors and nurses who have made mistakes that accidentally killed patients

      • Da Bald Eagul@feddit.nl
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        Username checks out. Also, same. The biggest cheat: keep moving it back by like a week or even a day at a time, because something always comes up that you’d feel bad for not doing first.

      • Ænima@lemmy.zip
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        It’s the thought that counts! I keep asking myself, is this it? Living like this. Trying to find joy in a world doing all it can to make every aspect of life miserable and boring.

        Also, if you’re an empath like me, chances are you resist the urge because you know you’d only be passing your pain on to others. I hate it, but I know that self checkout won’t take my pain away; just spread it to others in my life.

  • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    If you’re old enough you’ve definitely met someone who has done at least one murder. The question is intent as you’ve said: did you meet the drunk driver or the serial killer with 50 bodies in the basement who hasn’t been caught.

    Also this applies to rape and that is far more common because it is simply less reported. One of your buddies might be a person that has straight up forced a person to have sex, maybe violently

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      Let’s not forget the more obvious, most veterans or military have killed people but. We usually don’t count them because they were killing “bad people” that just happened to be from a different country.

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    I once gave a friend of a friend a condescending chewing-out after they did something hurtful.

    Some time later our mutual friend informed me that they had died, but declined to tell me the cause of death.

    Much later I discovered it was self-caused.

    … Were my words too much? We spend our lives trying to be more effective communicators. What if we’re too effective when it matters most?

  • lowflyingduck@lemmy.world
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    I wonder how many people who have themselves unknowingly caused a death, though some thoughtless or innocuous action. E.g. a discarded banana peel causes another person to later slip and fall with a fatal result.

    • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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      the number of people who fall into this category through their use of stock LED headlights is non-zero

    • orbitz@lemmy.ca
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      There’s an early Robot Chicken bit where he dies and asks silly questions to a book that can give him an answer like how many times did I listen to this song, or how much of a wall could my poop make. This question sounds like an interesting one to ask that book though. Actually I’d probably prefer not to know the chaotic randomness that is our lives but guess the lives part would be redundant at that point anyways.

    • ReachMinusOne@lemmy.zip
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      I frequently have this thought, but take it one step further. Like, what if something I did, intentionally or not, greatly angers or pisses off someone that they get riled up, and it leads to them having a heart attack or lashing out in a way that causes them mortal harm?

      Am I wholly responsible? No. But am I somewhat indirectly involved in their demise? Debatable. Yes, it gets very convoluted quickly, but it’s something that pops up in my head whenever I’ve got some idle time.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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        You are not responsible. Even if you argued with someone, you couldn’t have known what the outcome would be. Heart attack or they spent a bunch of time pissed and got in a fistfight later that resulted in someone’s death. You cannot control what they choose to do as long as your actions weren’t intentionally leading the other person to make those choices.

  • Crackhappy@lemmy.world
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    I have killed someone. My mother. It was intentional, legal and sanctioned. She was at the end of her life, suffering from Alzheimers and her entire family was present. I volunteered, as her only living child, to pull the plug. And I did. Did I kill someone? Yes. Was it the best thing to do at the time? Yes. Do you wonder if that’s a good way to go out of this world? Probably. Would you be wrong? Yes.

    • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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      When I was younger my grandmother died of cancer. She wanted to pass at home and we lived with her.

      For months she just declined, until she was bed-bound in the living room, having carers and family members feed her, clean her after she pooped on herself, sometimes randomly screaming in pain, having nightmares, and was largely incoherent. In the last week she didn’t have the strength to eat and her doctors told us to just stop feeding her. She had a death rattle that lasted for days and echoed through the house every time she breathed, until finally something just gave out.
      It was not dignified. It was not peaceful. It was deeply traumatizing. I wish we could cut her suffering short somehow – for us as much as her.

      • MangoCats@feddit.it
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        I wish we could cut her suffering short somehow – for us as much as her.

        Our legislators and judges are enormous chicken shits for not addressing this issue better. In a way, I would call them demented torture masters for their lack of clear and humane definition of when assisted suicide and mercy killing are legally permissible. Not required, but when all competent parties are in agreement? Keeping people with no quality of life and no hope of recovery alive with technology can’t be called anything but torture, in my opinion.

    • baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
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      I was told that once the plug is pulled, it’s not just some flatline and quiet sadness. The human body, regardless of its condition, does not like being deprived of oxygen and spends some time physically revolting before finally giving in. Apparently it’s horrific, but I haven’t witnessed it myself.

      • burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de
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        It’s going to depend on their condition. Someone who has lost their respiratory drive, someone who has a heart that isn’t working, and someone who is dying of organ failure all have their unique way of passing. And those are just the ones I’ve seen. There’s a saying in my field that everyone dies of shock, but there are lots of ways to get to that point.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        Depends. Saw my dad die of mesothelioma (asbestos from being a Torpedoman 3rd class, WWII). Remember Dr. Dyson dying in T2? Like that but a bit worse. Stood by as a family friend had the plug pulled, nothing but a flatline.

    • Swaus01@piefed.social
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      If you think about it, people have probably elected to be killed by their families ( and friends!) loads of times throughout history.

      spoiler
      • old age
      • mortal wounds / permanent disabilities
      • evading capture by enemies
      • escaping debt et cetera
      • one less mouth to feed
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    It is quite likely that someone I knew either killed a person, or had them killed.

    Said potential murderer is dead for a few years now and tbh I don’t think anyone wants to uncover this mystery anymore. Since the whole thing was very long ago, it’s easier to just ignore it instead of ruining everyone’s memory of a person. The other person who could’ve done it has been dead for a decade or 2 too.

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        Let’s just say some people I know lost their mother at a very early age and when one of them finally asked the father about it 30 years later, his explanation was “well person X was at work that night, ask him”. Person X being a business partner of his, somewhat of a low-end organized crime guy. Dead for like 10-15 years at that point.

        When I say lost, I mean she hasn’t been found decades later. Not even a body.

        Early 90s were a crazy ass time here in Estonia.

        There’s more details I know, but honestly if I go too into detail and the story makes its way out of our tiny community here, people who know about the whole thing will instantly figure out who I am and who I’m talking about and I don’t want that. Not because I’m in any danger from anyone - just because I don’t want it to happen.

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    When I was 18/19 in college, I met a guy through my brother’s work that was in his mid 40’s. We hung out with him and his girlfriend a lot and he was pretty good friends with my brother. He even met my mom and family, helped her with some construction projects she needed done (dad died when I was 15, so she didn’t have that extra help), and was invited to her wedding to my step dad.

    Now we knew that this guy was an ex-con (the restaurant my brother worked at hired a lot of ex-cons), but we never really judged or pried into what happened. Honestly, this guy was always just chill, giving, funny, helpful, and respectful. I never got creeped out by him, and i never felt like he was inappropriate with me. We found out through a mutual friend later that this guy used to get paid to bleach the bodies of girls/women that had been raped and killed by others. To this mutual friend’s knowledge, our friend hadn’t actually done any raping/killing, but I was really struggling to feel much comfort in the fact that he “only” helped guys get away with it. Especially because I was a young, petite college girl at the time.

    Anyways, I dont directly know of anybody ive met that has killed someone, but the fact that I know of somebody that did this horrible thing makes me think that you’re correct.

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    My ex-brother-in-law killed a family of four while DUI. The cops really screwed up the investigation so he was able to get the charges down to a minor moving violation. He never saw the inside of a jail.

    When I was in high school a friend of a friend that I knew and had hung out with at a couple of times was a serial killer/rapist. He was one of the last people executed by that state.

    Edit: My grandfather killed some Nazis in WW2. Several former coworkers killed people in the line of duty as soldiers. And, I worked as a records clerk at a nursing home, so I knew several doctors and nurses that had taken people off life support.

  • MangoCats@feddit.it
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    You have definitely met someone who will kill themselves in the end. The rate is about 1/70 people in the US, and for every successful suicide there are 32 attempts of varying seriousness.

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      Had a buddy that couldn’t take the pain anymore and he had enough drink and anxiety meds one night and he just never woke up.

      He made sure to turn on his music extra loud so it’d bother his neighbors so his cat would be okay and would be rehomed.

      He was a good guy.

    • guyoverthere123@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I’ve met two people who took their own lives.

      My mom shot herself with her husbands gun.

      My moms father shot himself with his rifle.

    • Canopyflyer@lemmy.world
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      Back in 2000 I had a close skydiving buddy. He was an excellent competitive pool player and taught me how to play and I even went on to win a few tournaments.

      Our friendship came to an end when my girlfriend broke up with me and he was in bed with her the very next day.

      Out of curiosity I tried looking up his name about a year ago. Turns out he was living with a woman down in Tampa, Fl. She had lost a child previously and was dealing with major psychological issues… He came home to find she had committed suicide… And he killed himself because of it. This all happened way back in 2013. So he’s been dead a long time.

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      I’m four friends (three best friends at various points in life) and five or six acquaintances down, and I’m not 40 yet. I’ll have to agree with you.

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      That has to be one of the worst choices if you must go. I get that we don’t think straight in those moments of our life, but it’s such a horrible thing to force on someone and their conscience…

      Not just trains, but all the instances where someone entirely unrelated will be dragged into something so heavy, like truck drivers, too. Hard to live with, can really ruin lives.

      Another thing I don’t like is when others that aren’t trained for it like the paramedics or police, have to see the outcome and fallout, such as jumping off a building into a busy street, even at night when nobody’s there just now, but will be. Or hanging yourself from your balcony in an apartment complex.

      It fucks up someone to see that, and I have to believe everyone could make the responsible choice of doing it in private or in a way that affects least amount of unrelated people possible. Like going with the helium/nitrogen bag, hanging within the bounds of one’s privacy, if shooting is the way to go, do it perhaps in the woods, somewhere peaceful and remote, and call the paramedics so they’ll be there before any innocent walkers-by, etc.

      It’s bad that anyone has to be involved, but at least the professionals have the training to deal with that somehow, even if it will ultimately fuck them up too at least somehow. At least it’s a conscious choice for them to put themselves in the position that they might have to see shit like that. Same for police.

      I would strongly encourage messless ways to go, too, because I think the psychological impact of a peacful-seeming exit without blood or injuries has to be the least damaging. It’s never going to be clean and harmless to others, but an exit bag would do a lot of good for everyone eventually involved in the situation.

      But I also get that a lot of people in that position may harbor some general hatred and bitterness towards others, which is horrible and I have to think entirely avoidable if the society did its job, so they might even choose to go as publicly and messily as possible just to make a point or something.

      But the others have to live with that shit. They keep going. You don’t. The least we can do is try to minimize the trauma and impact we necessarily inflict on others when we do go. We get the peace. We get away. Those others, not so much.

      I don’t know how this would be taught other than boldly and empathetically talking about it in school, to make the point repeatedly, like we do with sex education for example. And health education too. We really should talk about these things, so when the time comes one has to leave, the spine reaction would be to do it as kindly as possible, to be considerate in the choice of manner.

      • Hazor@lemmy.world
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        I get that we don’t think straight in those moments of our life, but it’s such a horrible thing to force on someone and their conscience…

        I’m a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. When someone is actively suicidal, they indeed are not thinking straight. They are (usually) just looking for a way to escape their pain. Actively experiencing pain (be it physical or mental) reduces our capacity for empathy - that is, to consider how our actions will impact others.

        I have had countless patients tell me their method/plan for suicide was to jump in front of traffic, jump from an overpass, lay on a road, lay on train tracks, etc… and none of them are ever, in those moments, thinking about how it will effect other people. Not because they wouldn’t care, but because they are simply unable to while in that state of mind.

        I’ve had some who, once they were feeling better, shared about how they eventually realized how it would have impacted the driver of the vehicle (or the person who would find their body if it was by another method). But that usually only happens once they’re no longer actively wanting to die.

        I’ve also had several patients who were the person to find a loved one post-suicide. It messed them up.

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        Got news for you, medics and cops ain’t trained for dealing with dead people. The cops I worked around as a medic were some of the most squeamish people at messy scenes.

        Nor are you trained to climb up out of a drainage ditch and explain to a Mother that her 13 year old son is dead down there, pinned under a 4-wheeler, and not me or god can fix it. (A tee shirt I got) Or a family about why their son and brother is hanging 30 feet up in the air by a rope. (Another tee shirt I got)

        I got a closet with maybe a tiny bit more of my share of tee shirts. But I sure as hell wasn’t trained for any of them.

      • burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de
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        but at least the professionals have the training to deal with that somehow

        Ha. You want to know the training you get for dealing with death? It’s a couple of sentences uttered by an instructor when some bozo in the class has more curiosity than thought and asks about the ‘yep, he’s dead’ policy. Most of the time you’ll have one of a pair who has done it before, and they just tell the other one what to do (like putting on the electrodes or looking around the room to see what else has been done). That’s the whole of it, adding in the jokes that will be told and the mild amusement of watching the other’s reaction when you grab a coke out of the dead dude’s fridge (I didn’t, but the more experienced one had when he was stuck at a house for six hours).

        • lonefighter@sh.itjust.works
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          Yup. I got a 2 hour lecture in EMT school that dealt with all of mental health and psych emergencies and included a “hey by the way take care of yourself, you’re going to see some really fucked up shit, a large amount of first responders end up with PTSD, the suicide rate is through the roof, if you don’t figure out how to deal with it you’ll be part of those statistics too”. Super helpful. Nothing like the feeling of watching your paramedic partner and your supervisor both crying in the privacy of the back of the ambulance after the death of a child.

          • Bluewing@lemmy.world
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            That was more than I got. It’s part of the reason that the state I practiced in required 2 years as an EMT B before you could go to school to become a medic. At least you knew what you were in for before they spent the time on you.

            • burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de
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              That’s just good practice in general. Everyone where I’m at rushes straight through medic school if they have the money/time, and it shows. They barely know how to talk to a patient, and then you’re throwing all the various blacktop training at them.

      • Tonava@sopuli.xyz
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        Once you get into the deep despair, the rationality disappears. It’s easy to logic “just do it without bothering others”, but the reality is that once you’re killing yourself, things like that don’t matter much anymore. Then the logic can warp to “it’s still better for everyone if I’m dead” or just “I have to die”, or something like that. I don’t really want to say the edgy thing, but I guess it is one of those things you can’t fully understand unless you’ve been there.

        Also it’s really difficult to kill yourself effectively in a non-messy way, unless you have access to some proper drugs. My personal choice is hanging by cutting off your blood circulation, since it is very effective and you can do it without others seeing. Someone is always going to find the corpse (unless you manage to disappear in the wilderness for long enough, but then just disappearing is super traumatizing as well for the people looking for you), but in the best case scenario they’ll just find you calmly in a sitting position and even though that’s traumatizing as well, it’s not brains splattered on the wall.

        Killing yourself is always horrifying to others, there’s just no helping it. I went so far I took selfies smiling seconds before just to make sure people left behind knew I was happy doing it, because that was the only solace I could give others in that moment

    • Zozano@aussie.zone
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      I don’t think anyone would say a train operator killed a person. I’d go as far as to say the operator is about as responsible as the passengers.

    • ɔiƚoxɘup@infosec.pub
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      I would think not if you’re a good engineer.

      Even the code of Hammurabi had the death penalty for engineers that caused the death of another through poor design.

      • uncouple9831@lemmy.zip
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        Well something tells me Hammurabi wasn’t aware of drone bombs, so forgive me if I skip over that asshole’s opinion on things.

        There’s a lot of industries out there, most of them are bad. Whether it’s oil&gas, aerospace, automotive, even basic scientific research…pretty much always ends up doing harm. Pure software engineering isn’t any better off – I mean every engineer who worked at Facebook in the 2010s has their hands bloodied with a genocide they facilitated. Or people who work on ring, or other doorbells, being used by ICE to hunt, torture, and in some cases kill, immigrants. A DOORBELL.

        Humans do terrible things, engineers enable humans. You can easily claim there was no way to predict the path from doorbells to murder, but…wait, no, the EFF predicted this from the moment go. So you have engineers warned their work would do harm, they keep working, their work does harm. That’s meaningful contribution from my pov.