How functional (or symbolic) was the noose on January 6th?

Was it there to hang Mike Pence for real? It seems difficult to believe that they could have erected a fully functioning gallows in a few minutes, and they had plenty of better ways to execute Pence if they’d gotten their hands on him. So was it simply a rope symbolizing their animosity towards Pence, or a for-real means of execution? I guess a rope and a sturdy tree-branch is all you need but that seems pretty inefficient compared to a firearm.

It fell between “functional gallows” and “psych ward would take it from you because you could kill yourself with it”.

Well, not just Pence. We forget that they intended to execute Pelosi, Schumer, and others too because of the “Hang Mike Pence!” chants. There are several videos of people still approaching the Capitol talking about dragging Pelosi out by her hair. It is a fair bet that any of “the Squad” would have been in VERY dangerous hands if the crowd got their hands on them. Even Josh Hawley believed he had exposure to violence if his actions are any indication.

But to answer your question-- I believe it was meant to be symbolic. It was not well constructed it would probably have been knocked over or partially dismantled if they actually tried to use it.The top bar was not the proper length and barely had any bearing on either side. Also, the “noose” was tacked on with what looked like a single nail. (A true noose requires a drop and I believe in Factual Questions you can find formula for how long a drop is required based upon the weight of the person and other considerations.)

I do not think they would have been able to get a resistant participant into the noose. There was not even a platform for them to stand upon to place the victim’s head into the noose or to push the victim off of without shaking the thing apart. They would have to lift the person up and hold them there while others placed the head through the rope. If they did, there would be no proper hanging-- at best a slow strangulation- and more likely the several people trying to get the victim into position would knock the thing over or apart.

The truth is, if the invaders ever got their hands upon any lawmaker – the lawmaker would never have made it TO the gallows before they were unconscious or worse.

Purely symbolic. The linked Tweet has a picture of the gallows with a person next to it. Also it probably had nothing to do with Mike Pence. Whoever brought the gallows had no idea what the mob would be chanting. I wish people would stop talking about the gallows like it was real and had anything to do with, “Hang Mike Pence.”

Only if you’re trying to execute cleanly. A long slow strangulation, where the victim suffers, was the original type of hanging. Drop hanging came later and was one of the first attempts at “humane” execution.

I think the neck break is fairly new to execution by hanging. In the good old days, the condemned were just allowed to writhe until they died.

Neither of the knots would hold.

The top one is a badly tied "round turn and two half hitches’ - a knot that can fail under load (hence rock climbers would never use it) and the ‘hangman’s noose’ is not a knot at all, it appears that the rope is wrapped around a solid object (a beer can?) so that, too, would not hold.

It was a statement that the GOP is a fascist movement.

Well sure before proper western hangings- the Brits liked to draw and quarter people which sometimes meant laying the victim on the ground and tying a rope around their neck and then running the rope over a sturdy support well above the persons height – then a horse or group of men would grasp the rope and run away from the victim hoisting them from their laying position into a hanging position (or "DRAWING them off the ground). Once they are free from the ground, they are hacked at with an axe and dismembered (theoretically into four roughly equal parts). I have also seen sketches of four horses pointed in four different directions, each with a rope tied to one of the person’s appendages. And then once the person is suffering from the horses trying to pull them apart by brute force-- the fore mentioned axes would finish the job.

Those do make hanging seem almost humane.

One more tidbit of arcane detail has occurred to me. Apparently aboard ship where ritual is important and nothing is left to chance - - - before someone is drawn up by men pulling the rope, they tie the feet together and that line (as sailors like to call rope) is looped around a cleat or something similar on the deck so the person does not swing around and cause other hazard or damage. Apparently everything on a ship, including sails are tied off at both ends so it doesn’t flap uncontrolled.

As if this will ever require further documentation in the near future.
They sure showed themselves for what they truly are that day, didn’t they?

I have this image of a crowd of clansmen sitting around a TV on January 6 getting all worked up about the shoddy craftsmanship of the insurrectionists storming the Capitol.

The first sentence is completely unsubstantiated: I need a citation, sorry.

The second sentence: so what? These are people who attacked the Capitol so they could murder our Representatives. Just because there is no direct tie where, say, Enrique Torres (sp?) ordered the gallows to be built for the express purpose of killing Mike Pence doesn’t mean that I can’t argue that the dipshits who built it wouldn’t have minded it being used to kill Mike Pence.

I mean, since we are assuming motive and all, it stands to reason that it was built more for a nefarious purpose than not. Was it built well? No, it was not. But holy shit, these people went to the capitol with a fucking gallows! There’s no need to give any of them the benefit of our doubt. We’re smarter than that.

God, I hope we are.

Cite for this statement please.

And this is based on what fact or cite? The gallows was there (functional or not) and the crowd was chanting that Pence should be hung. Why do you claim these are two separate, unconnected things? Clearly it was meant to be a scare tactic at a minimum. Despicable whether functional or not.

I am not the person to whom these questions are asked, but please remember that there was still hope that Pence WOULD reject electors (despite his private conversations with Eastman and Trump- we didn’t know as much about that then as we do now). The whole point was that Pence could have been the hero – or would be the zero.

They did not know that when the gallows was erected. The congressmen and women could have caused the thing to blow up by rejecting the electors, or Pence could have complied with the plan. Remember the guy outside the Capitol with the bullhorn announcing that Pence had screwed them over?? That was after the gallows was erected. That was after Trump sent out the tweet that Pence had let him down.

I do not believe anyone is trying to defend the gallows as insignificant. But several of us have pointed out that it would have been completely useless in any practical matter. Even if the mob did get their hands on any of their enemies (or in the untethered mood they were in at the time- their allies [remember them reading Ted Cruz’ notes and assuming he had screwed them before it was understood what he had written?])-- they sure as hell were not going to drag them all the way outside the building and across the lawn to the gallows!!

I am sure some of the dipshits had fantasies of dragging certain of them (like Pelosi, AOC, and others) to the gallows, tying their hands behind their backs, pronouncing them guilty of stealing votes and of fraud, asking God to mercy upon their souls – and only THEN hanging them. But in reality they would have been bear sprayed to death and likely beaten beyond recognition long before they even came into sight of the gallows. Absolutely everyone in the mob would have taken a shot at them – running up, punching them, then running away (or continue punching them if no one else pushed them aside so they could take their shot.

This was an out of control mob with no central guidance or control and command structure. Even all of the “militia” groups there could not have agreed upon what to do if they had accidentally been successful enough to reach those they sought. Once they made them abandon the certification – they had won, they had achieved their primary goal.

All of those who have been charged have had a chance to regret what they did that day. There is no doubt they would have a whole lot more to regret if they had reached the people they were chanting about killing. The charges would be murder and accessory to murder. And that lame ass gallows would have never figured into it at all.

They didn’t bring the gallows, or the materials to make one, to celebrate.

Seriously, we are smart, we try to be intellectually honest, and that is a good thing, but don’t let that impede the obvious judgement calls: a gallows is a killing machine and bringing even a replica of one is a threat of murderous intent.

You and I largely agree (and I do usually agree with your views). I would phrase this one part differently:
Change - “threat of murderous intent” ~ to ~ “symbol of murderous threat”

In either case it is very bad, shows evil intent, and even more importantly – shows forethought, shows planning. Premeditation demonstrated. I actually think it is more scary as a symbol- as a warning than if they had brought and built a fully functioning instrument of death. The very existence of the thing reveals too much about the mindset of at least some of these “peaceful demonstrators”. Not all of them perhaps, but there in no doubt- zero- that some of those people would have committed murder if the opportunity presented itself. But no one, not even for a second, thought the gallows would be the method used.

And I don’t know exactly why I am being so pedantic about this. I am only pointing out what I was able to observe and what I extrapolated from the information. My views are not meant to contradict the views of anyone else. Perhaps I should have looked again before posting – but I trust my memory in these matters.

The cite that the gallows was not intended for Mike Pence is the contemporaneous Tweet that I linked to above.

‘Pelosi, AOC, Harris, Biden, send them to the gallows’ a Trump supporter yells in front of the Capitol

I don’t think the, “Hang Mike Pence,” chanters were anywhere near the symbolic, and in no way functional, gallows. And the phony gallows was erected well before the crowd knew that Mike Pence was going to do his constitutional duty and the crowd turned on him.

There’s really no reason to think these two things are related. Perhaps you could provide a cite that they are.

Regardless of how actually functional vs. symbolic the noose actually was, the mere fact a gallows was erected at the Capitol is insane. And that’s the first time I’ve seen a picture of the whole thing- I’ve only seen closeups of the short orange noose cord handing from the framing. The fact that someone went to the trouble of building a whole platform is nutballs.

I really don’t get this. If someone discovered a burning cross on their lawn would you argue “eh, nothing to worry about- the cross is clearly not structurally sound enough to support a crucifixion, and the fact it’s on fire makes it even more unsound”.

The gallows was built with the clear intention of threatening any government officials the mob was unhappy with. What does it matter whether it was for Mike Pence vs. say, Nancy Pelosi? If anything, I think the fact that the mob was that ready to turn on one of ‘their own’ after a comment from trump is even scarier.

Totally agree. Coo coo for cocoa puffs.

It’s the answer to the question in the first sentence of this thread.

I doubt that any of them had any idea how to construct a functional gallows, but they didn’t know that. I think they would have tried to hang him and others.

It’s obvious at a casual glance that that thing wouldn’t support more than 20 pounds. I am certain that there is virtually no one near it who thought it could be used to really hang someone. A stiff breeze could knock it over.