Sorry, but sometimes I get confused by language. And this time, I'm even more confused than the last time.

The Philadelphia Inquirer seems to have joined Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson in using the word "assassinations" to describe the murder of two Loomis guards by ex-convict Mustafa Ali in last week's ATM robbery:

Before killing two armored truck guards at a Wachovia Bank ATM in the Northeast on Thursday, Mustafa Ali stalked them as they made their morning rounds, police said.

Ali, also known as Shawn Steele, executed two Loomis guards and injured the driver during their third stop in the city, Homicide Sgt. Bob Wilkins said yesterday.

The assassinations were captured by bank surveillance tapes, as was footage of Ali sitting in a black Acura TL at the guards' second stop, about five miles from the Wachovia branch, Wilkins said.

Wilkins declined to identify the second location, but said it was at an ATM that was close to a school and a school bus stop. He said the tape depicts "kids going to school and numerous folks walking around."

The stop is in the Northeast and less than a 10-minute drive from the scene of the shooting, which took place around 8 a.m. at the Roosevelt Mall at Bustleton and Cottman Avenues, he said.

The revelation is chilling because residents who live near the mall had expressed relief on Thursday that the shooting happened just after school started that morning. Four schools are near the mall, and they went into lockdown when the firing started.

Perhaps it's nitpicky of me, but I have always thought assassination involved more than killing, even premeditated killing by lying in wait. The Wiki entry would seem to reflect the common usage of the term:

Assassination is the murder of an individual; usually a political or famous figure.[1] An added distinction between assassination and other forms of killing is that an assassin usually has an ideological or political motivation, though many assassins (especially those who are not part of an organised movement) also show elements of insanity. Other motivations may be money (as in the case of a contract killing), revenge, or as a military operation.

The euphemism targeted killing (also called extrajudicial execution) is also sometimes used for sanctioned assassinations of opponents, especially where undertaken by governments.[2] 'Assassination' itself, along with terms such as 'terrorist' and 'freedom fighter', may in this context be considered a loaded term, as it implies an act where the proponents of such killings may consider them justified or even necessary.[2]

But how can I be sure?

After all, the Wiki entry goes on to note the origin and history of the word "assassin" ("generally assumed to be derived from its connections to the Hashshashin, a militant religious sect of Ismaili Muslims"). But even if we assume that Mustafa Ali was a genuine Muslim (and didn't just adopt the name in prison for other reasons), without any evidence that he committed the crimes for political purposes, wouldn't it be reckless (and maybe even a tad inflammatory) to use the word "assassin" to describe him?

There doesn't appear to have been any political motive that I can determine. By all accounts, this man was a career criminal who planned to kill the guards, grab the ATM money, and flee. He did just that. Unless he planned to give the money to a political organization of some sort, his crime appears to be a robbery murder.

If robbery killings are to be considered assassinations in the absence of any political motive, then it should be expected to follow logically that robbery killings with accompanying political motives would have to be assassinations, right?

So, the Weather Underground, the Black Liberation Army, and Symbionese Liberation Army members who killed numerous security guards and police officers during various robberies are assassins? That's odd, because despite the fact that these groups committed many murders, the only incident referred to as an "assassinations" was the murder of Oakland School Superintendent Marcus Foster (killed by the SLA for trying to "create a student identification card system").

Or take the case of convicted cop murderer Assata Shakur, now believed living in Cuba. No one refers to her as an "assassin," nor are the many murders of police and security guards by the BLA and other organizations called assassinations.

And in Assata's case, a taxpayer funded community center was named after her. But people complained, so the college was forced to change the center's name. Noted Ace at the time,

Murder is okay, depending on your politics. If you're left, or at least anti-American/anti-government, it's okay to kill people. You might even get your own shrine at a government-supported university.

In light of the community center, it seems that the concept of honor is involved. Can it be that some assassinations are more honorable than others? Or is the word now considered meaningless?

If common criminals like Mustafa Ali are assassins when the same crime can be considered honorable if committed with a political motivation (even though the latter are supposed to be assassinations), then it seems all Ali needs to do to have the label of "assassin" removed is declare war on America and write a book.

Then he might get a community center named after him or something, and people would clamor for his release. Instead, he's just a plain old assassin.

Except once again, that makes no sense, as it's the added political element that makes an assassin, and not the other way around!

I know it's only a word, but what gives here? I keep looking at the word "assassin," and the more I look, the less sense it makes.

Perhaps that's the whole idea.