# Best and/or least offensive methods of execution **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 14, 2015, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966 "2015-03-14T05:25:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/41 "2015-03-15T06:38:23Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > And if drug companies object, how could they know about it, or stop it? It’s not like there are dozens of manufacturers cranking out these drugs and just letting them loose into the world. If you want, say, Pentobarbital, there’s _one_ company that makes it, and if they won’t sell it to you or let any dealers sell it to you, you just don’t get to have it. You can also get homebrew drugs from a compounding pharmacist, but there aren’t a whole lot of them and it turns out many of them refuse to participate too. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/42 "2015-03-15T08:25:39Z")
The best in terms of risk, quickness is probably decapitation (discounting UL/meaningless even if true “the head is alive for 20 seconds” nonsense). But I think most would object to being returned a family member in two pieces so ultimately firing squad looks the best. Execution by shooting, a separate concept usually involving one shot to the base of the skull, has baggage. > [@Trinopus](#): > > For pure fun, I might enjoy being dropped out of an airplane at 30,000 feet, out over the ocean somewhere. A breezy last few minutes… The Argentine government [did just that](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_flights) for a period. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/43 "2015-03-15T10:31:36Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > So, then, if criminals are sentenced to life imprisonment, should we broadcast the inmates’ daily life, eating, sleeping, exercising, boredom, reading a book, etc. as a mandatory public broadcast? We already have _Big Brother_. Imprisonment isn’t _solely_ about revenge. The DP is. The two are different. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/44 "2015-03-15T12:13:08Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > The best in terms of risk, quickness is probably decapitation (discounting UL/meaningless even if true “the head is alive for 20 seconds” nonsense). How is that meaningless if true? 20 seconds of terrified existence as a decapitated head bouncing across the floor sounds like it could reasonably be described as suffering. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/45 "2015-03-15T13:43:28Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > How is that meaningless if true? 20 seconds of terrified existence as a decapitated head bouncing across the floor sounds like it could reasonably be described as suffering. Eh, I’ve experienced worse. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/46 "2015-03-15T14:22:14Z")
Me too. but I’ve also experienced better. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/47 "2015-03-15T14:45:39Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Europe has such a dominant pharmaceutical monopoly? Apparently so. I was surprised by that as well, as I thought that the American pharmaceutical companies would be an alternative source, but some of these drugs are only available from European companies. Here’s a good article on it, from the Atlantic: [Can Europe End the Death Penalty?](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/02/can-europe-end-the-death-penalty-in-america/283790/) Apparently only European companies still make sodium thiopental, which is the first of the three drugs in the standard execution system, because it doesn’t have much medical use. Some states tried to band together and find alternative sources for the drug, but ironically enough, they fell afoul of federal regulations for trafficking in drugs: > [@](#): > > As sources began to dry up, some states banded together to find new suppliers. South Dakota and Nebraska approached Kayem Pharmaceuticals in India, which sold each state sodium thiopental before halting U.S. sales in April 2011. In Arkansas, corrections officials obtained sodium thiopental from British distributors and then shared it for free with Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. But the states soon ran afoul of federal regulators for violating trade restrictions. The Drug Enforcement Agency seized Georgia’s supply of sodium thiopental in 2011 after records suggested that state officials might have broken the law by purchasing and importing the drug from Dream Pharma, a British distributor operating out of the back of a driving school in London. Kentucky handed over its sodium thiopental to the DEA that same year. And since, there has been a court ruling which bars the FDA from informally relaxing its import rules for states seeking the drug: > [@](#): > > Some have raised concerns about the ways in which the FDA regulates imports of drugs used in lethal injections. A group of inmates recently mounted a successful legal challenge to the FDA’s refusal to block sodium thiopental imports to Arizona, California, and Tennessee, arguing that the agency had improperly allowed drugs from unregistered distributors into the United States. In his March 2012 ruling, the federal judge Richard Leon agreed, and castigated FDA regulators for acting “arbitrarily and capriciously” and abusing their discretion by not blocking unregulated sodium thiopental imports themselves. [QUOTE=Lorene89095] The crap that killed Michael Jackson… I was given some once and it was most pleasant… [/QUOTE] Not a good idea. That drug is used widely in the medical profession for surgeries. If the US starts to use it for executions, it likely will be added to the list of drugs prohibited for export to the US, which will have major consequences for surgeries. The Atlantic article mentions that as well: > [@](#): > > Attempts to change the standard lethal-injection protocol have also been foiled by overseas intervention. In May 2012, for instance, Missouri’s Department of Corrections announced that it would institute a single-drug program using propofol. The powerful anesthetic is administered about 50 million times annually in the U.S. and gained notoriety for its role in singer Michael Jackson’s death. But in July 2012, Britain banned exports of propofol to the U.S., and Missouri Governor Jay Nixon ordered the state to stop using propofol after the EU threatened to impose its own export ban on the drug if the state used it to execute an inmate. Start using it for executions, and potentially 50 million surgeries each year will be more difficult to carry out. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/48 "2015-03-15T14:55:13Z")
Injection with maybe the chair or gas chamber tied for second. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/49 "2015-03-15T15:00:02Z")
I’ve heard the gas chamber is a horrible way to go. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/50 "2015-03-15T16:25:24Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I’ve heard the gas chamber is a horrible way to go. I never understood the importance of using cyanide gas, when just hooking up a car’s exhaust, and having the executioner start the engine, would be as effective. Or even old fashioned coal gas, which was a fast killer back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![Weeping\_Wyvern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@Weeping\_Wyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeping_Wyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/51 "2015-03-15T17:09:58Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I’ve definitely become a guillotine convert in the past year or so. Is there like some particular Anglo-American taboo against drawing blood and/or decapitation because otherwise its a fairly clean way to go? Perhaps it’s more of a desire to avoid emulating the savagery of the French Revolution. The guillotine will always be remembered as the instrument of that impious era. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/52 "2015-03-15T17:16:00Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > How is that meaningless if true? 20 seconds of terrified existence as a decapitated head bouncing across the floor sounds like it could reasonably be described as suffering. Nah, it’d be more like a few seconds of pain after your face smashes into the bottom of the head bucket. ---
**Author:** ![No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_umlaut_for_U)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/53 "2015-03-15T17:19:48Z")
Do they really have to have a _sterile_ lethal injection fluid? Why couldn’t any old type of barbituate be ground at a lethal dose, filtered, shoved in saline, and dripped in? Or morphine. Or anything lethal without inflicting undue pain. Personally, I’m for either nitrogen or nitrous asphyxiation, or else using an industrial chemical like chloroform to do the job. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/54 "2015-03-15T19:32:37Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Nah, it’d be more like a few seconds of pain after your face smashes into the bottom of the head bucket. And the pain of being bitten by one of the other heads. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/55 "2015-03-15T20:46:41Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > How is that meaningless if true? 20 seconds of terrified existence as a decapitated head bouncing across the floor sounds like it could reasonably be described as suffering. Well, even if at some point a severed head made autonomic movements that we might recognize as consciousness, that is not evidence of “I Have No [del]Mouth[/del] Lungs and I Must Scream.” So we cannot assume anything, and WAG that you won’t be thinking must in the way of existentialism after severe trauma. Just like how westerners are horrified when someone in Korea eats a wriggling octopus or fish. I understand that many creatures don’t have a nervous system as centralized as our, but that doesn’t mean that the octopus is experiencing body horror or even aware at that point. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/56 "2015-03-15T22:03:04Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Well, even if at some point a severed head made autonomic movements that we might recognize as consciousness, that is not evidence of “I Have No [del]Mouth[/del] Lungs and I Must Scream.” So we cannot assume anything, and WAG that you won’t be thinking must in the way of existentialism after severe trauma. > Just like how westerners are horrified when someone in Korea eats a wriggling octopus or fish. I understand that many creatures don’t have a nervous system as centralized as our, but that doesn’t mean that the octopus is experiencing body horror or even aware at that point. Did I misunderstand what you meant (WRT heads being conscious for 20 seconds) by ‘_meaningless if true_’? - because I think you just explained ‘_meaningless since untrue_’. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2015, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/57 "2015-03-16T01:13:16Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I’m very Old School. Nothing beats the guillotine. Well, okay, but we must hire a cackling old hag to sit and knit in the front row of spectators. And tumbrels: transportation to the execution must be via tumbrel. (I can’t think of any genteel way to allude to “Piss Boy.”) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2015, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/58 "2015-03-16T01:21:34Z")
> [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](#): > > Do they really have to have a _sterile_ lethal injection fluid? Why couldn’t any old type of barbituate be ground at a lethal dose, filtered, shoved in saline, and dripped in? Or morphine. Or anything lethal without inflicting undue pain. I wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t contrary to the FDA drug purity laws for human consumption. Just speculation on my part, of course. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2015, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/59 "2015-03-16T01:25:10Z")
I think the guillotine is the way to do it. Nitrogen would be ok as well. Strap condemned into airtight casket, close the lid, replace the air with nitrogen . Wait for telemetry to confirm death, place casket in hearse and proceed to mortuary of the deceased’s choice. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966/60 "2015-03-16T01:39:02Z")
Besides which, the EU won’t have a whole lot of veto power over our nitrogen supply. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-or-least-offensive-methods-of-execution/714966.md?page=4)