How to Kill Someone

The art of assassination has been studied since the ancient ages for the purpose of killing somebody for profit, revenge, justice, self defense or even pleasure. It is very difficult to kill a person effectively and not simple at all as movies would have you believe.

Why kill someone
Assuming the correct mentality
The Human Body
Indicators of life and death
weaknesses of the human body
Kill By hand
Kill By Knife
Kill By Gun
Kill By Poison
Kill By Explosives
Kill By Car
Kill By Fire

Why Kill Someone
Before it is discussed any further, you, the hypothetical assassin should think over what you are about to do. Commiting murder is a criminal act and is punishable by life imprisonment or occasionally the death penalty. Is it really worth it to kill someone if it means you will spend the rest of your life in prison ? Whatever trouble you are having in life there is a solution to, that's the product of so many thousands of years of civillization. One way of desuading yourself from killing someone is to imagine that the deed is done and try to understand what you will again if anything from committing murder.

There are many tempting reasons behind killing someone and the one that always turns up time after time is profit. The idea of getting rich is a powerful motivational force benefited from by people who are in a such a bad place that they have nothing left to lose. Revenge is driven by emotions and similarly pleasure. Killings done for revenge are usually performed at the spur of the moment at time of emotional anguish and always result in the killer being apprehended by the authorities. Serial killers feel pleasure when they kill someone, they become addicted to that feeling and so repeat the act over and over again until they are put away. The reason serial killers are not easily stopped by the police is that they usually have no relation to their targets and so the police cannot track them down easily.

Assuming the Correct Mentality
Once the would be killer decides to kill a target person he would have to guarantee a solid decision on what he is going to do. To illustrate this fact consider killing someone in the self defense scenario; If someone attacks you with a knife and tries to hurt you to steal your belongings what would you do ? would you stand still hoping that the attacker would spare you or would you fight for your life till the end ? To survive and kill an attacker or your target you have to be very clear to yourself on what you are doing, if you have an open chance to kill your intended target you should do so without hesitation whatsoever. Hesitation could be taken advantage of by your target resulting to your disadvantage.

The Human Body
The Human Body is a system of components working together. Some of these components are termed vital and if one of these vital components is destroyed, damaged or removed the human body will die eventually. It is important to identify which componenets when damaged will result in death so as to be able to apply the available techniques.

Indicators of Life and Death
Asides from movement there are two major indicators that a person is alive; Breathing can be felt at the mouth and nose and a pulse which can be felt usually at the wrist or the kneck. When there is no pulse you are assured that the target is going to die shortly. Other tell tale signs are brainwaves which can be picked up by an ECG device but these are too subtle for our uses.

Weaknesses of the human body
There are various weaknesses in the human body which are advantageous to the assassin. The brain controls the functioning of the human body through the nervous system and if the brain is damaged or removed the body will cease functioning properly and die. The lungs revitalise blood with fresh oxygen and this is required to feed the various vital organs. The Heart pumps blood throughout the body in coordination with the lungs to keep oxygen circulated, this blood is needed by the vital organs to survive especially the brain. If the heart fails or is seriously damaged oxygen will not reach the brain resulting in the person blacking out followed by death. Alternatively the blood supply can be hampered by damaging the major blood vessels. The body's nervous system is also a sensitive area, it is protected by the spinal cord but if broken at the correct place the nerves controlling the heart and lungs are cut off causing them to fail and then death.

Kill By hand
It is difficult to kill someone without using any tools. The best way to do this is to probably render someone unconscious and strangle them with two hands to cause them to asphyxiate (stop them breathing). The brain is a sensitive area of the body, however it is encased in the skull which is hard to break open without using any heavy tools, damage can be inflicted to the brain by accelerating it to a high speed very quickly, this is the reason some people faint when they are hit in the head very hard; the best way to accelerate the brain is to hit someone in the jaw from the side causing the head to turn quickly usually resulting in the target losing consciousness. Another way of disabling someone is to hit them in the center of the throat on his breathing tube, or hit them on the lungs both causing trouble breathing. The nose has a large concentration of nerves and blood vessels related to the brain so a square punch in the nose would also render someone incapable of self defense. Finally using martial arts the target's kneck can be broken; a person with a broken neck does not usually die, the closer the break is to the head the more probable that the nerves controling the heart and lungs are severed causing eventual death.

Kill By Knife
Using a knife to kill someone is better than doing it by hand as it gives the assassin the advantage of using a tool. Knife combat is the process of disabling a foe and finally applying a fatal hit with the knife to cause death. The first target of a knife should be the muscles, when severed they will not be able to function especially true in the case of the target's arms and legs. In such cases not only the tendons are severed by a knife but also nerves that control the action of the limbs. The second target should be the blood vessels which can be found in large concentrations around the neck and limbs. To sever the vessels in the neck the knife should be slashed across both sides of the neck in two rapid movements causing more damage than one slash. Finally the vital organs are targetted by knife thrust techniques such as the lungs. To reach the lungs the knife would have to be stabbed through the rib cage, once there it is very difficult to retrieve it, however a hit to the lung can result in several types of breathing complications resulting in death if first aid is not administered. Any stab attacks to bone such as the skull are usually undesirable as the knife could easily slip through the assassin's fingers causing self injury.

Kill By Gun
Guns are very popular tools for killing people. A gunshot should be directed idealy to the brain or the heart for inflicting the best damage. In situations where the gun is of very low caliber the shot should be directed to the soft spot at the base of the neck to cause death. In adition to that a gun is a heavy metallic object which can be used damage a person's skull/brain by impact. As an assassin's tool it can be quite difficult to use because of the noise it generates. It is important to use Hollow point bullets or hunting ammunition that expands upon entry into the body to inflict more damage on the intended target. Explosive and poison bullets are also available for a more certain result.

Kill By Poison
There are a huge number of poisons available from nature or created by man. The effects of poison can vary wildly and they all have different properties. The best kind of poison would be colorless, odorless, tasteless, effective in tiny quantities and untraceable by a forensics team. such poisons do exist and the best poison known is probably saxitoxin also known as Shellfish Toxin; it is lethal in very tiny quantities and causes death several seconds after injection. Even if someone seeks medical help after the poison is administered there is no way to save the target by any medical technique known. In addition to all that it is untraceable by any forensics test on the body. A lot of other poisons exist, the scope of this subject is beyond this article. Poisons can be given to the target orally (with food), as a gas through the lungs (breathing), injected into the body or applied on the outer skin.

Kill By Explosives
Explosives are a very crude device for killing someone. They work by using high pressure and debris flying at high velocities to tear a body apart. The difficulty in this technique is that expertise is required to control the explosive especially the timing of detonation. The best way to do this is by booby trap or remote control.

Kill By Car
A car is a form of a very lethal weapon. It is a very large 1 ton piece of metal capable of moving at very high speeds as directed exactly by a driver. A car will always be more dangerous than a gun or a knife as someone struck by a car moving at a high speed has little chance of surviving. This is evident by the number of car accidents resulting in death.

Kill By Fire
It is not usually the heat from a fire that kills someone, but actually the gases and hot air coming out of the fire. When someone is exposed to those asphyxiation will take place resulting in death. This best way to strike using fire is to start a fire in the basement of a house while the target is asleep. The fire will spread upwards and consume the house and the person in it. Forensics experts have been dealing with arson for a very long time and they have techniques of tracing the soon to be evidence in a crime scene. Yet fire is one of the best tools there is, a simple lighter can carry the equivalent of 10,000 fires in a very small device that doesn't arouse any suspicion and is sold everywhere openly to the public at a very low price.