To better understand what respondents in the general public were thinking about when they answered this question, Pew Research Center writers and editors called back some of the survey respondents who said targeting and killing civilians for political, social or religious reasons can at least sometimes be justified. Some of them said civilian casualties that are a byproduct of war can be justified. One man in his 50s, for example, said: ”It's just like [World War II] – sometimes killing civilians is part of the cost of war. We hope it will never be necessary, but if we have to do it, we'll do it."
Although the survey question was intended to probe the morality of targeting innocent people to advance a cause – as suicide bombers and other terrorists often do – some respondents may have interpreted it more broadly. For instance, one man in his 80s said that violence against civilians is acceptable ”just in self-defense." And another man in his 50s said: ”If I'm walking along and I'm peaceful, and somebody wants to hurt me or my family because of their political, religious, social views, by all means I think ... our law enforcement has every right to put them down."