Richard Bernard Moore, the first South Carolina inmate to be given the choice of firing squad or the electric chair, has chosen the firing squad.
I think the firing squad is the best method of execution. It is quick and any pain is only incidental and momentary. It doesn’t involve trying to obtain drugs that are now being denied to States. And it doesn’t have the messiness of the electric chair.
South Carolina made this change due to the fact that lethal injection is becoming almost impossible due to supplier refusal to sell them the necessary drugs.
No worries about gun suppliers refusing to sell guns or ammo for executions.
Firing squad should just be adopted as the standard method of execution nationwide.
It’s also by far the most honorable of all execution methods. It allows the condemned to face a group of his fellow citizens, who represent us all, with dignity. Not being strapped to a chair as an animal, but to stand up with chest held out as a man (or woman).
I never looked into the why, but why isn’t it prevalent. May be there is a want for suffering instead of a peaceful death… yeah it’s probably about revenge
All I really know is people are killed by it accidentally every year. They just pass out and are gone in an instant. No gasping for air or anything, they just lose consciousness as the oxygen in their brain is replaced.
I don’t think that’s how it happens it real life. Utah was the last state to execute by firing squad and the condemned was strapped to a chair. I’d be surprised if South Carolina won’t do the same.
I’m more of a non supporter of capital punishment, but suspect firing squad is the more humane method if it’s a states’ rights issue.
Does anyone remember the film Stephen King’s The Green Mile? The trustee inmate character played by the late Harry Dean Stanton, cleaning the death chamber after an electrocution?
Well, having grown up in Florida, I once dated a man who worked with a paroled trustee inmate who did that same job at the infamous Starke Prison. D started to tell me the story of how the inmates were prepped; how they died, and really I had to shut him up three times before he finally finished and I’m still having nightmares.
It is, IMO, a “modern” day burning at the stake at violation of the 8th. It should along with the gas chamber be in history’s dist bin.
Really, even if I truly don’t like a person, I can only stand so much cruelty against them, & it isn’t much.
‘Fraid I’ll stay more anti than pro death penalty, although I do have a ton of respect for those like Sam Shepherd, Jr and Sister Helen Prejean who are 100% against it.
They should just drop them off in the middle of a secluded island and give their executioners a chance to hunt them. If they make it off the island and onto a nearby one, they’ve won their freedom. But be careful, there are two neighboring islands, one safe, the other filled with diseased monkeys. If you choose the diseased monkey island, it’s certain death.
