# Firing squads **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 18, 2014, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171 "2014-01-18T23:13:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/41 "2014-01-19T19:22:13Z")
To be fair, the British got the method of blowing from the mouth of cannons from the Mugals. Check out [executedtoday.com](http://executedtoday.com) it’s the TV Tropes for us morbid fucks. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/42 "2014-01-19T19:27:10Z")
**Slithy Tove** right. Native rulers in India also sometimes executed people by having them trampled by elephants. (In some cases if the elephant refused to step on the person, after a few tries they released the prisoner and let them go free, so it served as a sort of trial by ordeal). ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/43 "2014-01-19T19:43:24Z")
I’d take being shot in the head over lethal injection anyday. I don’t think this is anywhere near the first time lethal injection has caused slow suffocation, even with the old drug cocktail. Supposedly the electric chair is the most humane execution method. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/44 "2014-01-19T19:55:36Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > The Guillotine is OK, I guess. A bit too French. They’re also too closely associated, at least in my mind, with a specific and unpleasant historical place and time. > > Hanging still seems the best to me. It’s universal, death is instantaneous if done properly, and you get to die standing up (as is the firing squad, although that seems a bit too military for civilian executions). It’s really the classic way of doing things. Point in fact: the one time my country ever executed someone, they built a gibbet and hanged him. > > Incidentally, I oppose the death penalty. You know the regime that guy served guillotined more people than Robpierre ever dreamed. And of course, being technokrauts, they had to [retinker the design](http://boisdejustice.com/Germany/Germany.html). ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/45 "2014-01-19T20:05:26Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I’d take being shot in the head over lethal injection anyday. I don’t think this is anywhere near the first time lethal injection has caused slow suffocation, even with the old drug cocktail. > > Supposedly the electric chair is the most humane execution method. Firing squads don’t shoot you in the head. An eyewitness account of Gary Gilmore’s [execution by firing squad](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/04/25/death-by-firing-squad.html): > [@](#): > > At that moment, three or four shots rang out almost simultaneously, echoing throughout the cinder block building. Gilmore’s body jerked, his chest rose outward, his head dropped down, though his neck was held by a heavily padded strap, and his right hand rose for a second before coming to rest on the chair’s arm. The smell from the guns was everywhere inside the abandoned cannery. > > Then the doctor appeared, to check Gilmore’s heart with his stethoscope. He turned and shook his head, indicating that Gilmore was not dead yet. The room was still for maybe 15 or 20 seconds and then Warden Smith and Father Meersman joined the doctor. They loosened the strap around Gilmore’s neck, allowing his body to fall forward while Smith checked the bullet’s exit points on Gilmore’s back. That was when I saw blood dripping from under Gilmore’s white pants. It was pooling on the wood floor—a steady stream circling around his left shoe. Gilmore was dead. ---
**Author:** ![runningdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9c0ed/32.png) [@runningdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runningdude)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/46 "2014-01-19T20:06:20Z")
> [@thirdname](#): > > So they say that the death penalty is more expensive because of the appeals process. Am I the only one who finds this a little unsettling? If you’re put in prison for life you don’t get as many appeals as you would on death row? Because they’re about equally bad in my view. There are not “more” appeals, but appeals that are not applicable outside of a capital case. Most appeals attempt to commute the death sentence to life in prison. If one is already sentenced to life in prison, these appeals become unnecessary. Other types of appeals would still be available. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/47 "2014-01-19T20:58:46Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > Honestly, the reason is because there are people who want capital punishment to be a punishment, and they perceive a morphine overdose as just letting the criminal get high one last time. I think this is a dumb argument, but that’s a part of why we use these complex drug cocktails; so that the person feels nothing, instead of a high. Right dose of morphine they aren’t going to feel anything either. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/48 "2014-01-19T21:34:35Z")
I don’t think there’s any hidden agenda or nefarious motives at work regarding not using morphine for lethal injection; reading the link upthread, that’s really not too far off from what Ohio did. Hydromorphone, trade name “Dilaudid,” is extremely similar to morphine, such that your average dope fiend would be happy as a clam to get his hands on some. It’s more potent and is given at lower dosages than morphine, but there were still problems with it’s use in lethal injection: > [@](#): > > HOUSTON — An Ohio inmate’s drawn-out execution this week led to an outcry about the increased use of new lethal injection drugs by the country’s 32 death penalty states, a practice that experts predict will lead to more problems. > > Dennis McGuire took more than 15 minutes to die Thursday, appearing to gasp and snort, according to witnesses. His lethal injection was a combination of two drugs never tried before in a U.S. execution, according to experts at the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. > > McGuire’s two children, who witnessed the execution, announced plans Friday to file a federal lawsuit against the state alleging that the execution violated McGuire’s constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. They are seeking a moratorium on executions until officials devise a more humane method. > > “I watched him try to sit up against the straps on the gurney. I watched him repeatedly clench his fist. It appeared to me he was fighting for his life but suffocating. The agony and terror of watching my father suffocate to death lasted more than 19 minutes. It was the most awful moment in my life,” said the inmate’s son, who is also named Dennis McGuire. [Prolonged execution renews debate over death by lethal injection](http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-execution-drugs-20140118,0,393202.story#ixzz2qsjPyYtx) There are several non-nefarious reasons why states would want to stick with the drugs that they’ve been using. The three drug cocktail that all states used until recently was developed by the ME of Oklahoma in 1977, and was known to work reasonably well, leading to an if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it effect. Additionally, there was already a body of case law saying its use was acceptable, so when authorities start straying from that they open the state up to new lawsuits, like you see in the story above. There’s also the issue of morphine and hydromorphone being schedule II drugs, more tightly controlled and presumably harder to obtain (until recently) than the less regulated schedule III and uncontrolled drugs formerly used, I’m actually surprised that Ohio used hydromorphone and find myself wondering where they got it from - no doctor is going to prescribe it for a death sentence and pharmacy distribution of it is watched pretty carefully. ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/49 "2014-01-19T21:43:13Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Both of which takes seconds to cause death. I am against the death penalty. However, if it has to be done, it should be done properly and humanly, causing the least amount of pain to the victim, not to be aesthetically pleasing to the audience, which is all that lethal injection is. The victim has already been killed by the condemned, likely with no regard to pain. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/50 "2014-01-20T01:30:10Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > You know the regime that guy served guillotined more people than Robpierre ever dreamed. And of course, being technokrauts, they had to [retinker the design](http://boisdejustice.com/Germany/Germany.html). I just wanted to say thank you for posting this link—I’d known about German use of the Guillotine, but I’d never seen in depth all the technical developments they’d made over the decades. Mechanically and historically fascinating stuff. ---
**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:** [January 20, 2014, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/51 "2014-01-20T03:09:47Z")
And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the guillotine an effort to come up with a more humane form of execution? Wasn’t that Dr. Guillotine’s motive in designing it? ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/52 "2014-01-20T04:41:55Z")
If they wanted to save money and mess, why not a captive bolt pistol? Or if there’s a shortage of the drug, they could just recover and purify it after use… Hey, the death penalty is meant to be a deterrent too. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/53 "2014-01-20T10:24:34Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the guillotine an effort to come up with a more humane form of execution? Wasn’t that Dr. Guillotine’s motive in designing it? Not the only time when the designer’s invention went in an unintended direction with the entrepreneur’s implementation. A machine designed to make dying easier also made killing easier. And when it was used to kill young women for distributing leaflets, as the Nazis did to Sophie Scholl and the French did to Giap’s sister, it taints its humanitarianism. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/54 "2014-01-20T11:15:40Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Not the only time when the designer’s invention went in an unintended direction with the entrepreneur’s implementation. A machine designed to make dying easier also made killing easier. And when it was used to kill young women for distributing leaflets, as the Nazis did to Sophie Scholl and the French did to Giap’s sister, it taints its humanitarianism. …so really, the cattle slaughtering machine is the _least_ “tainted” form of execution. (And it damned well ought to be—the FDA would never stand for tainted machines touching future food. Not without at least a good scrubbing.) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/55 "2014-01-20T11:36:00Z")
> [@thirdname](#): > > Applying a rear naked choke until unconscious and continuing it until death. Etc. You’re proposing _garrote vil_? Really? Once we stopped burning witches, it was considered the cruelest form of execution. ---
**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:** [January 20, 2014, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/56 "2014-01-20T18:00:02Z")
The mere death of the condemned isn’t enough, because if it was, a gas chamber hooked up to a car’s exhaust would suffice. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/57 "2014-01-20T23:29:20Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > If they wanted to save money and mess, why not a captive bolt pistol? > > Or if there’s a shortage of the drug, they could just recover and purify it after use… Hey, the death penalty is meant to be a deterrent too. The bolt pistol is okay, but the use of drug from a non-validated manufacturing process would be prohibited by the FDA. This is not entirely a joke; that is the problem with lethal injection. The only approved manufacturer of one of the drugs is in Europe, which will not export it for use for lethal injection. One state in the U.S. actually purchased the drug illegally from a distributor in Europe, and refused to return it - that was just so wrong. If anyone is interested I can look up the news reports. > [@Ranchoth](#): > > …so really, the cattle slaughtering machine is the _least_ “tainted” form of execution. > > (And it damned well ought to be—the FDA would never stand for tainted machines touching future food. Not without at least a good scrubbing.) Validated scrubbing, _validated._ ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/58 "2014-01-21T00:21:46Z")
Why exactly do these drugs need to come from Europe, which has belatedly discovered scruples ? — No doubt more from fashion in morals than any particular sticking-point. America has more pharmaceutical firms than you could shake a stick at; if they all refuse ( which is insanely unlikely, as the country’s democracy approves of capital punishment and capitalists have no ethics unimposed by governance ), there’s Mexico and then Latin America. And at the last, there is the motherlode: combining getting the right drugs with America’s favorite pastime; buying cheap crap from China. China has deliberately modeled executions on the American mode. China executes a fair number, and the 3-drug cocktail could be made to a surplus for overseas sale to either national governments or sociopaths. Barring outsourcing executions to the Third World, the simplest method would be if the State Department asked the Chinese Government for a list of their preferred suppliers and expedited import licences for those states needing the good stuff fast. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/59 "2014-01-21T01:38:50Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Why exactly do these drugs need to come from Europe, which has belatedly discovered scruples ? — No doubt more from fashion in morals than any particular sticking-point. > > America has more pharmaceutical firms than you could shake a stick at; if they all refuse ( which is insanely unlikely, as the country’s democracy approves of capital punishment and capitalists have no ethics unimposed by governance ), there’s Mexico and then Latin America. > > And at the last, there is the motherlode: combining getting the right drugs with America’s favorite pastime; buying cheap crap from China. > > China has deliberately modeled executions on the American mode. > > China executes a fair number, and the 3-drug cocktail could be made to a surplus for overseas sale to either national governments or sociopaths. > Barring outsourcing executions to the Third World, the simplest method would be if the State Department asked the Chinese Government for a list of their preferred suppliers and expedited import licences for those states needing the good stuff fast. With respect, your post does not indicate you are well informed about U.S. drug regulations, E.U. laws concerning the death penalty, or even current Chinese policy on medical product manufacturing. No U.S. company manufactures one of the three drugs in the approved “cock-tail”. You can probably track that down from the linked articles. I repeat my offer. If you want me to track down news reports on this issue, I will. I won’t be able to post until tomorrow night, though. I think I have several saved on my work hard-drive. Because part of my job is keeping informed on this kind of thing. If you just want to assume I don’t know what I am talking about, have at it. Either way, let me know. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171/60 "2014-01-21T02:29:14Z")
Actually, I am not that interested in the death penalty nor the methods of such. Especially not the methods. That no US company manufactures the cocktail in no way prevents them from doing so. I would assume that Chinese policies can be altered with the right inducement. EU laws are unimportant if they were sourced outside the EU ( and emphasizes the point that ethics are driven by government rather than the sellers’ hearts — after all they sold it before ). US drug regulations, although no doubt determined not to cause harm to those they are about to execute, have not prevented the importation from Europe, so why should they prevent importation from other places if the chemicals are equally well-prepared ? Here’s a **[link](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/will-the-eu-kill-americas-death-penalty)** on the EU, the drugs, and the existential crisis facing the American Execution Industry. _… sodium thiopental, which served to kill the pain, was used as part of a three-drug lethal injection cocktail in all but two states with the death penalty. Pancurium bromide paralyzed the inmate. Potassium chloride stopped the heart._ Anyway, no discussion of the death penalty is complete without a quote from that dear old children’s favourite, so… _He does not know that sickening thirst That sands one’s throat, before The hangman with his gardener’s gloves Slips through the padded door, And binds one with three leathern thongs, That the throat may thirst no more._ _It is sweet to dance to violins When Love and Life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air !_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firing-squads/679171.md?page=4)