Hey good movie choice. That’d be mine too for sure. Has to have been the extended edition.
Shit I misread it and I thought he wanted to eat the firing squad for his last meal. “Maybe he’s in for cannibalism, bold move cotton.”
21st century and Utah is still killing people with firing squads.
There was a huge kerfuffle about it here when it happened. We had a law on the books that allowed it and the dude insisted on it, ostensibly for religious reasons. I can’t remember if we took the law off the books or not, but I hope we did. While nobody else knows who fired the killing shots, the people who did it know. If they’re the type that wants to kill, then I don’t want to give them the pleasure. If they’re not, I don’t want to make those people live with a violent death on their conscience. It’s fucked up, just like executions in general.
EDIT: Execution by firing squad had been removed in 2004, but anyone sentenced before then had it as an option. Gardner was grandfathered in.
I was told years ago that there are multiple shooters and some of them have blanks so they don’t actually who who fired the shot, I’m not sure how true that is.
You definitely feel the difference between a blank and an actual round, blanks barely have any recoil since there is no mass being accelerated forwards to create an equal and opposite reaction. That’s why guns in most movies look like airsoft guns even if they are actual guns
Based on what I’ve read it seems like a firing squad is actually more humane than using drugs
True.
Although I wonder if it creates jailers who have to work extra hard to dehumanize people. So that’s probably not great.
I would think that if a person committed such a horrible crime that they got the death penalty it wouldn’t be so hard to participate in the execution. I personally have changed my view over the years. I would rather keep them in for life without parole. That’s a life more miserable than be executed
Why not take the Chinese approach and sell some of their organs? We already have prisons for profit. Now add a “health clinic” where you go in with 2 kidneys and come out with a big bandage on your lower back when you only went there for a sore throat.
Yep, came here to say that.
Lethal injection is almost always administered by an unqualified not a proper doctor, because essentially every doctor refuses to do it.
Why does every doctor refuse to do it?
Because it is horrifically inhumane.
Lethal injection is a cocktail of 3 drugs:
A sedative / anaesthetic.
A paralytic.
A drug that induces a heart attack.
…
Here’s some problems:
The guy that came up with the original cocktail did it on a hunch, a best guess, because he wasn’t an actual doctor. Just made it up, and we’ve been going with it for like 70 years, it’s cool, trust me bro, I read about this stuff in a magazine.
So… being a proper anaesthesiologist is a highly specialized skill, you have to know a lot about a person’s medical history and conditions to properly sedate them.
But almost no lethal injections are done by qualified anaesthesiologists.
That means you often get too small a dose, which means you are conscious, aware, and feel everything, but drowsy, like you accidentally took 3x the nyquil you should have, but cannot actually fall asleep.
Next comes the paralytic!
Which, oops, when you are conscious for that, well, that means you are now actually suffocating to death, as your diaphram is mostly paralyzed and you can’t breathe without immense willpower. If you’ve ever held your breath a long time for something like a deep dive in water, you’ll know that the lack of oxygen in your lungs begins to feel like they are on fire. Also, every muscle in your body is now having the worst charlie horse you’ve ever had, at the same time.
Now for the heart attack inducing drug!
This feels like a burning liquid coursing through your veins, and then entire body. Your paralyzed, oxygen starved lungs now begin to fill with liquid. Then your heart feels like it is going to explode, and then it stops.
Were you not (nearly) totally paralyzed and partially sedated, nor strapped into the death bed, you’d be screaming in agony, flailing around and violently contorting, probably vomiting through gritted, clenched teeth.
This whole process can and has lasted 20 minutes, an hour, two hours.
… Being shot in the heart or head literally is more humane and painless, so is a proper hanging that breaks your neck instead of strangling you.
Only seconds of pain untill brain death.
Honestly more surprised it was a firing squad in 2010
Sounds like a pretty good way to go to be honest. It’ll all be over in seconds instead of the minutes to hours of lethal injection.
Only if the firing squad don’t fuck up.
Look up what happens when the injections fuck up.
No, I don’t think I shall
Wise.
States are having a hard time getting access to lethal injection drugs. Also having a hard time finding qualified people to do the injections properly.
IIRC they reauthorised firing squads was due to the effective nature and readily available qualified personnel.
Because of the Hippocratic Oath most doctors swear. Hard to find one who swore the hypocritical oath instead
