Cassie Bernall definitely was an innocent person killed by the lunatic gunman. Her death is a tragedy, but an innocent person who is killed does not automatically become a martyr. A martyr is a person who suffers or dies for his beliefs when faced with the choice that were he to retract his beliefs, his suffering would cease or his life would be spared. That choice and foreknowledge are very important. So, the Christians who were thrown into the Roman amphitheatre if they persisted in their religion were martyrs. Rosa Parks, the black woman who refused to go to the back of the bus was a martyr. They knew that they would suffer for their beliefs but they damned those consequences.
Ms. Bernall had no idea whether her belief would make her suffer. Did she know, before the gunman asked her, that answering "yes" to the question would get her killed? If she had answered that she didn't believe in God, would her life have been spared? The truth is, nobody knows. The two people who knew best are dead -- the gunman shot himself and murdered Ms. Bernall.
Secondly, there is a fallacy in the reasoning. Just because A happened after B doesn't mean that A was caused by B. Was Ms. Bernall killed because she answered that she believed in God? If she had kept silent, or looked at the person sitting next to her, would the killer have moved on? Again, nobody knows. Did she know that she could have diverted the killer's attention without standing up for her belief in God?
The word "martyr" is highly charged and carries with it a lot of meaning. We should not be devaluing it, assigning it willy-nilly.
