South Carolina to carry out first U.S. firing squad execution since 2010

[Sir Mohamed]

Welcome back to the stone age.

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1898012344397033768

[Skill and Chance]

I generally oppose the death penalty, but if a state is going to impose it, using guns instead of torturing the condemned person with experimental drugs is a good change.

[John Fettercuck]

As someone with a needle phobia, just f***in take me out back and shoot me

[Voice of low info America]

This is the correct way. Firing squad is the only standard American execution method that has no shortage of proper equipment and trained operators to do the job efficiently and relatively humanely.

[Schumer can go f*** himself!]

Setting aside the questions of whether we should have a death penalty and if so, when it should be imposed, death by firing squad is actually significantly less barbaric than many (most?) of the lethal injection methods.  Do I have any confidence that rigorous psychological testing will be performed to make sure the executioners aren’t just psychopaths who get off on killing people or that this is being done as anything other than a sloppy effort to somehow “own the libs?”  Of course not, but it’s still a vast improvement over how lethal injection is often performed.  Remember, just because the drug cocktail physically paralyzes the person so they don’t make a scene doesn’t mean they aren’t still in excruciating pain while it is happening. 

The point of lethal injection is to kill people without forcing the public to grapple with the morality and brutality of the thing when an execution goes wrong by keeping the executee immobilized regardless of what they are feeling or otherwise experiencing.  It has never been about reducing the suffering of the condemned or finding a more humane way to carry out the death penalty.

[TDAS04]

If we must have the death penalty, firing squad is best way to do it, aside from maybe the guillotine.

[ingemann]

Like most other people, I really don’t get why this wasn’t the normal way to execute people, instead of experiment with one more insane way to execute people after another.

[K.W.R.A.E. 8647]

Ed Martin will be in attendance to preview possible resolutions to his investigation into people being mean to the DOGE incels online.

[For Raza livin in La La/Like Gaza onto the dawn of Intifada]

F--k it, yeah, let's do this. If I ever end up on death row, this is how I want to go. That is unless I request a final meal that is so abundant that it kills me before those bastards can get me against the wall.

[Vosem]

They did not have guns in the Stone Age. I think you’re very confused about justice and technology.

[Atlas Force]

“I like the firing squad. It's so much easier ... and there's no mistakes.“

-Ronnie Lee Gardner in 1996, the most recent man executed in the US by the firing squad until today

[falling apart like the ashes of American flags]

Like most other people, I really don’t get why this wasn’t the normal way to execute people, instead of experiment with one more insane way to execute people after another.

It's an optics thing primarily. Hanging went out because it reminded people of lynching, the gas chamber went out because it reminded people of Nazis, and firing squads mostly went out because it reminded people of communists and other regimes carrying out mass purges. Lethal injection initially didn't have any negative historical connotations, but now we're finding out it's not very humane at all, also the issues with obtaining drugs for it.

This is really not more inhumane than lethal injection, which is a completely separate question than as to if the death penalty should exist at all.

[Duke 🇺🇸]

Honestly would be fine if they took me out in that manner right now

[DrScholl]

The death penalty is disgusting no matter what the method. I don't know how anyone could be an executioner and live with themselves.

[ingemann]

Honestly would be fine if they took me out in that manner right now

I would be unhappy if I didn’t live enough to see people like Musk and Vance get their comeuppance, sadly Trump will never get it because with the haste his brain is rotting up, there will be nothing left in four years.

[Jumped off the American Sinking Ship]

The death penalty is disgusting no matter what the method. I don't know how anyone could be an executioner and live with themselves.

isn't this part of the idea with firing squads, to make the guilt of execution not fall on any one person?

anyway, I honestly prefer this to lethal injection. Harder to screw up a hail of bullets than a chemical cocktail. Of course, I'd prefer no executions in the first place.

[Banana Republican]

If we must have the death penalty, firing squad is best way to do it, aside from maybe the guillotine.

Not at all. With the guillotine, there is some evidence that severed heads can remain conscious for some time after they have been cut off.

Are Humans Still Briefly Conscious After Decapitation?
Beheading is still practiced in some parts of the world, even though it is rare. So, do humans retain consciousness after the beheading?

In 1905, a French physician sought to find out. He attended an execution and stood close to the guillotine. He approached as soon as the severed head tumbled into the basket below and called out the man’s name.

He claimed the eyelids lifted and the man looked briefly at him before lowering his gaze. The physician called his name again and received a similar response. The man did not respond to a third prompt. The physician concluded based on his observations that a severed head could retain consciousness for 25 to 30 seconds.

The physician might have been correct. Studies involving animals have recorded brain activity following the sudden severing of the head. One study in New Zealand sought to understand whether there was brain activity in decapitated lab rats.

Can you imagine the sheer terror of the experience of being a severed head? Falling and hitting the ground with a thud, and then lying there for a bit? Or maybe then being lifted up from the ground and displayed by the executioner? If anything is cruel and unusual, that seems like it to me.

So no. The most "humane" method of execution is to strap a large quantity of high explosives to the body (especially to the head), and to blow up the body in a massive boom. Rather than having the possibility of remaining conscious, death is for sure truly instantaneous in that case.


But, as Senator X puts it well:

The point of lethal injection is to kill people without forcing the public to grapple with the morality and brutality of the thing when an execution goes wrong by keeping the executee immobilized regardless of what they are feeling or otherwise experiencing.  It has never been about reducing the suffering of the condemned or finding a more humane way to carry out the death penalty.

The point of tinkering with the machinery of death and fiddling around with different methods of execution is not to make the experience more humane for the person being executed, but rather is to make the general public as well as the executioners feel less queasy about it.

[Rand]

Great news. This should be the standard in all 50 states.

[Don't Tread on Me]

Better than the chair

[Progressive Pessimist]

It is probably less expensive, but still just as pointless.

[インターネット掲示板ユーザー Punxsutawney Phil]

Better than the chair

Yep.

[Joe Biden 2028]

I strongly support the death penalty (with clear and unassailable evidence of guilt).

I think it should be done far more often.

[VBM]

Today I learned that they had rifles in the Stone Age

[afleitch]

'If we must have the death penalty...'

No.

Being shot at is barbaric. It's no 'better' than any other method.

[Bacon King]

isn't this part of the idea with firing squads, to make the guilt of execution not fall on any one person?

it actually goes even further than that

traditionally one member of the firing squad is given a rifle with blanks instead of live rounds - in theory this means every single one of them can choose to believe "i didn't actually shoot them" if it helps them sleep at night

in practice however every member of a firing squad can immediately tell if they fired a real bullet or a blank because there's a massive difference in recoil between the two

when Utah did a firing squad execution in 2010, instead of blanks the "rifle of the innocent man" was given a dummy cartridge with a wax bullet so the recoil would match the others, thus preserving the full diffusion of responsibility across the entire firing squad