Originally published at: Oklahoma death row inmates pursue execution by firing squad | Boing Boing
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“While it may be gruesome to look at, we all agree it will be quicker,”
The attorney is very strongly and properly implying a “and should” after “may”.
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Maybe we could just outsource it to China? The other place that still does it.
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The States and the Federal Gov. will do anything to continue this barbaric practice, except ban it, which would be cheaper and more humane.
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Williams, himself the victim of a gunshot wound to the chest area, testified that a firing squad involving shots from at least four high-powered rifles to the “cardiac bundle” of the heart would be so quick that an inmate wouldn’t feel pain. He also said that unlike lethal injection, there is an extremely low likelihood that the execution would be botched.
I mean, he has a point. But I still don’t trust the state enough to carry out executions.
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That pic tho, wow.
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I am against the death penalty but if we are going to do it is should be as quick and painless as possible. Our botched attempts are simply horrible and quite needless. A firing squad seems more humane than a botched lethal injection.
Interesting fact, the guillotine was created by a doctor sick of seeing botched executions. At least with a guillotine nothing is botched it is a sure thing.
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I am shocked to see a picture of white skinned people executing a dark skinned person. That seems so rare!
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The death penalty should have eliminated ages ago.
Also- it’s weird that euthanasia/assisted suicide etc can be routinely provided humanely so many places; but they can’t do so here. It’s almost like they’re not interested in doing so.
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I think the real reason for the shift toward lethal injection for executions has little if anything to do with what is most humane for the people getting executed and everything to do with making the spectacle less gruesome for everyone else.
When a person gets strapped down on a bed that looks like something in a medical clinic and has a nurse put a needle into their arm everyone gets to pretend that it’s just some kind of medical procedure instead of an act of state-sponsored homicide.
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As I’ve stated in other threads, the death penalty is revenge, not justice.
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You may well be correct but screw that. Execution is vicious, if they want it so bad they have to see it in all of its inhumanity.
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I agree. Some things should be hard to watch instead of sanitized for public consumption.
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I was very much against the death penalty until I read about the case last year, somewhere down south ( go figure) of a pastor/minister who had raped a 9 year old girl on her fathers grave…and he was released after having served some time. I mean just…there are no words.
That doesn’t really make an argument for the death penalty so much as making an argument for harsher sentencing for rapists. It’s not like “kill the bastard” and “let him go” were the only two sentencing options available.
The rapist in that case probably wouldn’t have even been eligible for the death penalty anyway if he didn’t kill anyone.
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Back when rape was commonly punishable by death the severity of the sentence was often counterproductive, assuming that the goal is to convict rapists and keep them away from future victims. Most sexual assaults against children are committed by relatives or acquaintances, and the victim may be less willing to testify against their uncle/priest/stepdad/etc if they knew that their words could lead to a death sentence.
There’s another thread going on right now about Maya Angelou. For those who don’t know, she was raped as a child and her rapist was murdered immediately after his release from jail. The implication that coming forward with her accusation led to him getting killed was extremely traumatic for her, and she became mute for almost 5 years afterwards.
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Euthanasia is performed by doctors aiming to reduce the harm done to a patient by alleviating their suffering.
Executions are harm done to a patient and thus anyone qualified to perform them won’t, can’t, and shouldn’t.
The Halifax Gibbet predates anything Dr. Guillotin invented by a couple of hundred years.
The Maiden in Edinburgh museum is much older too.
That’s actually a myth. Guillotines frequently needed to be raised and dropped again (often many times). It’s down to whether the blade lands on a vertebra or between two vertebrae, and the latter is much less common. It’s by all scientific account a gruesome and agonizing way to die.
There is no humane way to kill. The idea that there is, is a fiction created by people who wish to murder and have the state do it for them so they don’t have to live with it.
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If we’re going for execution methods that are quick, painless, hard to mess up and gruesome to look at, I think I’d personally prefer the guillotine. If you’re going to be killing people, you shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the brutality of it.
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