Judge Argues For Return Of Firing Squad Executions

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. The point of firing squad executions is...

that no one shooter can know whether he fired the fatal shot. (And there's also the tradition in firing squad executions of one shooter getting a blank cartridge.) And "non-fatal multiple-shot debacles" aren't likely; a firing squad is five men with .308 Winchester or .30-06 Springfield rifles, at a distance of 20 feet, aiming for the chest (traditionally a paper target is pinned to the shirt of the condemned prisoner, with the X ring just above the heart). If the shooters are trained marksmen, it's instantaneous and as nearly foolproof as the guillotine (and less traumatic for the executioners than putting a gun to someone's head and pulling the trigger).


Personally I sort of suspect that the medicalisation and sanitisingof executions by way of lethal injection is part of the reason so many people still support capital punishment in the USA; if a more direct and brutal method were used (the firing squad, hanging, or the guillotine) capital punishment would've probably been abolished by now.