Full face SCUBA mask if they need to be in the room with the prisoner. Or really any hazardous environment breathing gear would be fine. Nitrogen isn’t toxic or caustic so skin exposure isn’t a concern.
Old saw: Nothing is foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
Years ago I was overcome by nitrogen my first sensation was light-headedness and blindness. The guy I was with readjusted the fan to blow directly on me cuz I was completely unconscious that was a really smart move on his part . It happened really fast no pain or discomfort whatsoever
Seems you could put the full face SCBA mask on the prisoner and supply it with pure nitrogen. Everybody else in the normally ventilated room is safe. Minister can hold the hand of the imminently departing as (s)he ‘transitions’ to the next world. Easy. Even Oklahoma could do it. Maybe.
Were only say-in “you’re doing fine Oklahoma
Oklahoma, N2”
Yeah, that would be an easier way to do this. Looks like the states that are pursuing it are going with the room method, though.
They should trust their god to protect them.
Maybe they can find 500 death penalty advocates, half of whom would be given pure nitrogen and half given a mix of 20% oxygen and 80% hydrogen to carry out a double blind test.
One problem could be that the companies that sell bottled nitrogen might refuse to sell it to a state for that purpose. Then they would have to build a facility to deoxygenate air and put it into tanks. Then one to build the tanks. Then to make the steel, then refine the ore. Reinvent civilization–all this to kill people?
Unlike the drugs for lethal injection, bottled nitrogen is available from a great many sources, including welding supply shops in just about every city of any significant size. A state wouldn’t even need to tell a N2 vendor what they needed it for, as some prisons have welding training programs for inmates, and I’d guess most prisons also have workshops (for facility maintenance) that include welding capabilities.
A hydrogen/oxygen mixture seems a bit dangerous.
Commercially available hyperbaric chamber, tank of nitrogen instead of the usual … and bob’s your uncle.
This is a different discussion: “why don’t states use nitrogen chambers for the death penalty” vs “why don’t states not kill people.” The second question brings in gender and racial disparities, irreversible wrongful convictions, prosecutorial misconduct, homo lupus homini est, etc.
But the intersection of the two is of palatability. Besides being readily available, nitrogen kills the the condemned painlessly and, more importantly, is less icky for the executioners and witnesses. Coal gas, like pre-ethanol car exhaust left poor Sylvia Plath red as a beet, her eyeballs blazing. When Wisconsin Territory hanged its first condemned killer, it was done so amateurishly that the revolting spectacle made it the states last. Cleaner killing makes it easier.
Based on my experience with three sadists in my life who eventually committed suicide, I’m content with life incarceration. Each of the three ran out of victims to torture, and then turned to self-torment until they self-euthanized. The state should still prevent jailhouse suicides, or Richard Speck-like spectacles of forced prostitution. Just let the evil chemicals in their brains work the magic, unhindered by economic embargo.
Or, perhaps they might a actually come into the light of remorse and self-awareness, which promises its own self-punishment more lingering than the execution chamber.
Obviously I meant to say 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen.
I’m assuming they won’t sell such equipment to the State for executions, exercising a business’s right to refuse service to whoever they damn well please.
~Max
I am doubtful that it would be difficult to have one custom-made.
Executions need to be fast, reliable, easy for relatively untrained people to administer, and not gruesome to watch (the body doesn’t twitch and heave, no moans are heard, and so forth). Bonus points if the process is ~scientific~ in some way that lets us tell ourselves we invented the perfect death. This process has been going on for centuries now, and every time they think they’ve figured it out, the new method eventually comes to be regarded as messy and undignified and bad (because, well, that’s kind of how death is).
Nitrogen may well meet the criteria right now, but it won’t be seen that way forever.
To be fair, a lot of people have died from an overexposure to a 2/3 hydrogen, 1/3 oxygen mixture.
Hydrox breathing gas may be used for deep-sea diving below 30 metres or so, with 4-5% oxygen at most, but not above that as the increased oxygen required would render the mix too explodey…
Thanks for the corrections. I was worried that Seldon was suggesting a competition between nitrogen asphixiation (quick, neat, and painless) vs a Hindenberg-like process (quick, not neat, questionable pain).