I think all capital punishment should be ended.
However if I were condemned and had to choose between the three options given in the OP, bullet would easily be first and lethal injection would be last. Lethal injection (in most US cases) has been excrutiating torture. Its a paralytic agent and muscle relaxant that leaves a person conscious during an agony inducing potassium overdose. The common sequence of drugs used is horrific. It should not be done to anyone ever
9 Likes
It’s never deterred violent crime (let alone murder). But the original point of judicial murder was to reify the idea of “property crime” as we know it today (when the hanging craze first took off, it was to deter such “crimes” as taking home bread from the bakery where you baked it), and in that sense they hit it out of the park.
Today, people will let their children go hungry rather than risk “stealing” from even the dumpster of a grocery store; we’re incredibly well trained. That’s the real reason most states no longer kill people – the fact that they don’t need to is an even stronger display of power.
4 Likes
I’m against capital punishment, but I’m in favor of the right to die.
If I were relegated to spend the rest of my life imprisoned in our (US) penal system, after exhausting all other legal remedies for justice, I could imagine wanting to choose a humane way to “end it” before my natural end. In that context, I want people to have humane options.
But really I think this speaks more damnably to the state of our penal system than it does positively about various methods of execution.
5 Likes
“Why would your mother-in-law move toward adopting a dog when Hitler also loved dogs?”
Do you see how this is a complete logical fallacy now?
4 Likes
intentionally ignoring that people who have been executed by the state were in fact innocent.
and that’s with the “expensive paper trail.”
if the state wants to murder someone, they sure better be murdering the appropriate person. appeals are supposed to help with that, unfortunately it’s not even enough sometimes to prevent executions of innocent people
so better to lower the stakes and stop attempting to murder people in the first place. it’s cheaper, more just, and heck - internally consistent with the rest of our laws which say, hey don’t kill people.
( there’s also just so much wrong with the racial dynamics of executions. there is no way to make execution just in the us. )
5 Likes
ive long wondered but have been afraid to go internet searching: what does this mean about euthanizing pets?
like are we doing this same thing to animals, telling ourselves we’re putting them to sleep peacefully, when in fact it’s super painful to them?
or is that different, and if so: why in the world would some mammals need one set of drugs than another?
maybe it’s off topic. im not trying to derail. it’s just every time this comes up, i wonder what it is that ive put beloved companions through.
4 Likes
We’re not.
We’re sedating the animal to death usually. Just one large sedative drug dose that knocks the animal completely unconscious, then some more of it, that usually depresses their breathing reflex until they die. For all intents and purposes it’s like a heroin overdose. They just nod and it goes dark.
Lethal injection starts out with the first drug used specifically to paralyze the victim. It generally leaves them conscious but unable to show any response. Then they’re given a drug that forces their muscles to relax. Then they’re given a drug that basically gives them a seizure till they die. And the first two drugs are specifically to keep them from flailing and screaming and puking their guts out and shitting all over the place. We know from botched lethal injections that the victims stay conscious for a large portion of it, and that it’s very painful.
It’s pretty different.
If you botch putting your pet to sleep, they just wake up again, possibly with brain damage, but generally it all happens while they’re unconscious.
Edited to add spoilers. Realized after I posted that this is triggering.
12 Likes
that’s actually super helpful. and it makes a lot more sense understanding the difference with that explanation. thanks for helping to put my mind at ease.
i still miss my old man cat nearly every day. poor kid. i wish he could’ve gotten to meet the cats that i have now. 
5 Likes
Isn’t this why USA made the constitution? to protect its citizens from the state?
not pictured: every other for profit news
3 Likes
lethal injection seems to anesthetize the masses into thinking it’s okay.
6 Likes
As @LDoBe explained they’re very different. Pet euthanasia was designed by vets that care about the animal and want it to be as painless as possible. Lethal injection was designed to be painless for the people watching while still painful for the prisoner. We could execute people painlessly; Kevourkian, for instance, designed a more reliable and much more pleasant device. Lethal injection is awful because the sort of people who favor state-sponsored murder don’t want it to be painless
11 Likes
What ancient century are these f*cking South Carolina legislators from?
4 Likes
3 Likes
This is so bizarre. Why not other super brutal (and more guaranteed to be fatal instantly) methods like dropping a flat based 40 ton weight a-la Wiley Coyote cartoons onto someone?
Actually makes a bit more sense. It’s guaranteed to be fatal if you’re suddenly reduced to paste between two objects. The weight is reusable. I’m sure the dropping mechanism could be made to be very reliable, and depend on some random event like decay of a radioactive isotope. What? It sounds too cartoony and brutal? We’re more civilized than that? I call BS. My proof - electric chair.
3 Likes
These days the State is executing people via firearms long before a trial is even contemplated. /s
7 Likes
But you had a competent, qualified medical professional conduct your anesthesia. In prison settings it is someone whose qualification is only that they know not to stick the sharp end into themselves. /s
1 Like
My understanding is that historically we have changed the process of execution to make it ‘more palatable’ for the observers, state and public, without any consideration of the executed.
Where would the public stand on the guillotine and beheading by axe… probably the most humane death except for the public theater and psychological terror for all involved.
Some people want retribution ‘lite’, they just don’t have the stomach for a more humane process.
2 Likes
The way trial by combat worked in the UK until it was abolished in the early 19th century (though no actual combat had taken place for centuries) was that no champions were allowed, though priests, elderly or disabled people, women and children could refuse a challenge. This applied to the accuser as well as the defendant.
If the accuser surrendered, he was outlawed. If the defendant surrendered, he was hanged on the spot- not even the King could pardon him, as he was considered to have been judged guilty by God.
4 Likes
Utah kept it because of old Mormon ideas about ''blood atonement"- that people who had committed certain sins, including murder, could only get into Heaven if they were killed in a way that spilled their blood. For the same reason, condemned criminals in Utah used to be given the option of death by beheading, though I don’t think any chose it.
Blood atonement isn’t Mormon doctrine any more, but there certainly have been condemned murderers who were Mormons and opted for the firing squad because of it.
The Japanese use a device where multiple people press buttons simultaneously, only one of which is wired to open the trapdoor of the gallows.
Of course, unlike in the US (or most European countries while they still had capital punishment) where the executioners are volunteers, in Japan they are randomly chosen prison guards who can be fired if they refuse.
4 Likes
Just to attribute the image, it is from “Hardtack and Coffee” by John D. Billings.
3 Likes
