Man dies by firing squad in US

I think in some states you choose the manner of your execution. I doubt a court ordered death by firing squad. If it was me i'd have to go with the oul injection. Imagine only taking a stomach wound on the first volley. Not a nice way to go.

Lando Griffin wrote: »

Man dies by firing squad in US A US man convicted of two murders has died by firing squad. 49 year old Ronnie Lee Gardner from Utah - has become the first person executed in a hail of bullets - in the United States - since 1976. He'd been addicted to hard drugs as a child - spent 18 months in a mental hospital - and been abused in a foster home. Brian West from The Desert News says Gardner fought this case hard:

Who would have volenteered to be in the firing squad?

I wonder was it a firing squad or mechanical computerised guns.

Is this a more humane way of killing someone than the chair or injection or hanging.

Will they be beheading any time soon?

I remember hearing about this on the radio a few weeks ago. Firing squads were outlawed by Utah in 2004 but the ban was not retroactive, so if the death penalty was imposed before that date, firing squad was an option the prisoner could choose.
As for the squad itself, one shooter in each squad has a blank instead of a real bullet, so they all aim and shoot , but can all ease their conscience by thinking they had the blank, even though they had no way to know.

according to BBC anyone convicted before 2004 in Utah can choose their own method of execution. They reckon this guy chose firing squad because he wanted to be cleaned up afterwards...

Nijmegen wrote: »

You don't argue with a bullet to the heart.

Unless you get a bunch of psycho gunmen who intentionally just wound you for the first round!

Lando Griffin wrote: »

Who would have volenteered to be in the firing squad?

They probably chose five U.S. Army marksmen at random who wouldn't have a choice whether or not to participate?

I wonder was it a firing squad or mechanical computerised guns.

An automated system seems a bit unnecessary.

Is this a more humane way of killing someone than the chair or injection or hanging.

A reporter/documentarian did a good show on this topic previously. He went around the world researching the various methods of execution in use, trying to see which ones are the most humane and which one people would support.
Unsurprisingly the families of victims were largely in favour of having people executed using the least humane methods possible.

In the course of it, he volunteered to take part in an experiment in a pressure chamber. They slowly removed the O2 in the chamber and replaced it with something else (think it was Nitrous Oxide, I'm not sure). They brought him pretty much to the brink of death and he reported that the experience was neither painful nor distressing. It is basically the equivalent of making someone get drunk very slowly and nicely before they nod off to sleep and die. No pain at all and he also reported that at a certain point and complete calmness and nonchalance came over him - even he didn't care or notice if he was dying at that stage.

That seems pretty humane to me.

NothingMan wrote: »

Imagine only taking a stomach wound on the first volley. Not a nice way to go.

The captian of the firing squad then walks over to the person, draws his handgun, puts it to victims head and blows the victim's brains out.

It's gotta be better than being buried up to your neck and then being stoned to death, or buried alive.

Why make it humane?, the killer didn't do that for the victim!

My fav way to execute would be a public hanging using the low-drop.

Let the family, friends(of the dead victim) and onlookers enjoy the prisoner's last twitches.

Most methods of execution can be botched. The firing squad works on the basis that with 5 men, 4 with live rounds, aiming at a stationary target with a white sheet on the area they need to hit, they're likely to do it quickly.

Hanging can often go wrong leaving the person strangling for a long time rather than snapping the right bits of their neck and spine and killing them within a relatively short time. They fudged the execution of von Ribbentrop and he apparently took a quarter of an hour to die.

The electric chair is obvious.

The lethal injection is hard to tell, because it's a couple of things they give you to first paralise and then stop the heart. It can be botched with the wrong dosages, but even when done correctly there's a wonder if it isn't extremely painful.

The idea of the room they remove oxygen from is humane, but very slow and there is an argument to say that the person being executed should feel at least fear and at best remorse as they go to their end.