South Carolina moves closer to allowing death by firing squad | Hacker News Reader

South Carolina moves closer to allowing death by firing squad

bbc.com

19 pointsRickJWagner64 comments

Death by firing squad is relatively humane (especially in comparison to electrocution), so if you really need to have capital punishment and your options are electrocution and firing squad, the choice is pretty clear.

I think the reason executions moved away from firing squad was that it was mentally taxing of the people in the firing squad, not because the alternatives were more humane.

The good old binary. Let's just assume we _have_ to kill someone. We just have too. Now let's assume there are two ways to kill people. Nice. Gotta shoot em is the right answer.

Correct. The right answer is obviously a guillotine. The real humane way to solve this binary problem

Why stop there? America First supported Weimar Republic, which killing method landed on gas being most efficient for helpless civilians. Disrupts prison showers too.

Maybe it wasn't a solution though.

The guillotine is a humane system. Dr Guillotin designed it with quick and painless death as a goal.

Death camps gaz chamber were probably designed by doctors too. Not sure. But throughput seams to be the main drivers in those system. Being able to exterminate whole train of folks swiftly.

Different ball game if you ask me.

If it’s mentally taxing why not create some sort of automated firing squad? First version could just be a line of guns manually aimed and then set to fire simultaneously off some timer.

More advanced versions could eventually feature face recognition for auto aiming and arbitrary placement of the gun turrets.

Why stop there? We could just load them up on an assembly line and have one of those automotive robotic arms use an air gun on them like they do for cattle. Better yet just rip their heads clean off with an automated guillotine. Then us regular folk could check it out on the latest “how it’s made” episode and remark to our selves on how satisfying the sheer efficiency of it is. Do that long enough and we could even have kids react to the old people’s way of electrocuting them in a chair. They’ll think that shit be cray. Sounds to me like the killing business is ripe for disruption.

From the Onion: Ohio Replaces Lethal Injection With Humane New Head-Ripping-Off Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfsMMVgIToA

If it's ripping, is it really a guillotine?

Well, no. I seem to remember the history of the guillotine would preclude ripping as it was supposed to be cleaner than other chopping methods.

There are countless other more humane ways to kill people, if we must. No need for a "high tech" solution here.

I'd prefer they keep it difficult/impossible to do though. Making capital punishment easier is the opposite of what they should be doing.

The high tech aspect is what brings dignity and humanity to the execution. If you had to be killed, wouldn’t you rather be killed by our best and brightest technology, rather than some cheap off the shelf bolt gun?

It might be instructive to look at how people choose to die when they have a free choice. Ah, what am I saying, why am I trying to think of better ways to execute people? We should just stop doing that.

Since it was an invention to make it easier on people who do the executions, yes we probably don't have to focus on optimizing our disconnect to killing.

Indeed. There's also the point of making it as cheap as possible, or profitable to rich people, like with soylent green.

Can't we just use those execution bolt guns at that point? It seems silly to make a big distance and chance of missing. The products can be bought off the shelf from slaughter houses.

If a firing squad is somehow moving anything in the right direction then god help you.

What is the point of the death penalty if not vengeance?

And if it's vengeance, how can vengeance ever be humane?

To be clear, I am absolutely not defending capital punishment as a practice. My point is just that, if you have already decided that you are going to do it, like SC has, it is much better for it to be by firing squad than for it to be by electrocution, which was the proposed alternative.

I'm against death penalty but for the sake of discussion I don't think it's purpose is vengeance or torture but because society deems that some crimes are irredeemable and are a way of avoiding having to keep the criminal detained indefinitely.

Comparing costs:

https://www.thebalance.com/comparing-the-costs-of-death-pena...

I honestly didn't know this. I live in a country where death penalty sounds like a medieval thing. On the other hand I really don't understand how you take vengeance by killing someone. I understand it can be a deterrent for serious crime though.

Vengeance is mostly learned behaviour and ideology.

It really doesn't matter to the person being executed. I think changing it is more about the sensibilities of the observers.

I think it does matter to the person being executed. There are numerous stories of lethal injections going wrong, of those being executed writhing around in extreme pain.

If I were on death row I think I’d very strongly prefer a firing squad. If I were the person performing the execution… perhaps not.

But I think you’re right that these changes aren’t being brought about for the benefit for the executed. It’s embarrassing for those executing when one goes wrong and states have had to resort to more and more obscure cocktails of drugs as companies refuse to sell when they know their product is being used to kill. By comparison a firing squad has a very simple supply chain.

Plus there's a certain panache to a firing squad. By that I mean it's more dignified.

There's something really creepy about injections and electrocutions, it's like they're a perversion of medicine.

The firing squad forces society to face consequences for what it is doing. Capitol punishment is a way for society to say there's certain things we will not countenance, will not accept, will not try to explain except to reject it utterly. For especially gruesome crimes. But a firing squad deters its use whenever compassion is felt for the truly repentant.

This is a cruelly ironic development against the backdrop of the major DNA news in another capital case today—a potentially innocent man put to death.

There is no do-over or undo, no fixing mistakes, when the death penalty is in play.

The death penalty is barbaric and indefensible. The so-called criminal justice system is criminally unjust, and abolishing the death penalty is a good start towards reform (one among many).

Since we have DNA evidence now, does this mean we should expect less mistakes in the future? If this is the case, abolishing death penalty may be in the wrong direction.

Instead of abolishing death penalty, how about raise the bar for the evidence? For example, how about death penalty only for those having clear video / DNA evidence?

Say we do such a good job that we get a single wrongful execution per decade. Do you feel that cost is worth the benefits of the death penalty?

Possibly? I always heard it as "better to let 10 guilty people go free than to punish one innocent man", which suggests that there is a reasonable exchange rate.

The problem with putting really horrible people in prison for life is that they victimize other prisoners. Prison isn't hell because of the guards.

I'm not sure that saying establishes an exchange rate. As phrased it at best establishes a lower bound.

I suggest there's solutions to the prisoner victimization issue that don't involve the death penalty.

I honestly think I’d be pro-death penalty in a world where 100% of the sentences are accurate.

But that’s not the world we live in so I’m 100% opposed.

Basically this. I have no objections to offing people who have offed others, but I cannot reconcile the death penalty with lack of trust in government. If they make simple mistakes then they cannot be trusted to implement the death penalty with 100% certainty.

You could also make a case for "death penalty, but never to be used on those who maintain their innocence."

But that pretty much falls apart when you look at the whole cash bail situation, and all of the ways that system incentivizes the innocent to cut deals for guilty pleas.

There's no way to undo the lost time that any bad decision causes.

Time you lose that you should be with your family, the last hugs/words that you couldn't give, the wife/husband that had to work harder because you weren't there, the now ex- that moved along with life

One problem is that money, apologies, a gold medal, doesn't bring back the lost past

I believe the death penalty is necessary because some people do not deserve to live. Why can we justify killing people by shooting them as a necessary barbaric act during war, but not recognize that the worst criminals deserve the same treatment? It's absurd to think that as a society we are above killing because it's an inevitable part of life. I say murderers should not be able to kill others without having to fear that they themselves will be put to death.

I see where you're coming from, but I contest the assertion that it's an inevitable part of life.

It's inevitable in the sense that there will always be some murders and war will never completely end.

If I had to choose between injection, electrocution, and firing squad, the latter sounds the least stressful/scary.

If I could pick a way to go, it'd be getting trashed on some delicious liquor, passing out, and then just having someone drop a large concrete block on me from a notable height.

I'd adjust that to hard liquor, then a general anaesthetic on top to be sure, then the brick and a firing squad after the brick.

I'd rather live, but if I had to exit early, the only thing I'd ask for is to be extended the courtesy of doing it myself.

I'd much rather we didn't make it a habit of forcefully ending sapient lives, though. It's an awfully arrogant thing to do. We can do better.

I must admit for a macabre minute I was pondering how effective are those things that shoot out a bolt that they use on cattle...

This is because of the difficulty of killing people in South Carolina in other ways. FTA:

"The southern state has not held an execution since 2011.

The legislation passed by the South Carolina House of Representatives aims to restart executions by bypassing the difficulties states face in procuring the drugs for a lethal injection cocktail."

Why not just fill a room with nitrogen? Non-toxic, easily available, guaranteed effective, and from what I hear it it's not too bad a way to go.

Carbon monoxide is the way to go. It’s literally what people who want to die by assisted suicide use when you had to do it without legal assistance.

The cruelty of the death is part of it. It sickens me.

The last execution by firing squad in the US was the execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Lee_Gardner

The prior one was in 1996.

I'm with others in that I think the death penalty needs to go away.

If we assume it has to stay, why wouldn't they just do something like carbon monoxide poisoning, morphine overdose, or sleeping pills + blood letting (no idea if there's an official term for draining blood to the point of death)? They all seem to be far more humane than a firing squad...

People are quick to judge news reporters always get it wrong. Of course nobody gets everything right! Nobody ever did.

There are many examples from all countries, courts and judicial processes also get it wrong.

If electrocution is more gruesome because the inmate doesn't die immediately, then why not put them under general anesthesia then electrocute? That sounds more humane than a firing squad.

> its supporters say it is about bringing closure to victims.

Wat. Killing someone brings closure? Since when?

If someone did horrible, unspeakable things to a loved one of mine and the police caught them before I did, I would want them killed. I understand that not everyone thinks that way, but there are plenty of people in my region of the country who do.

If that's the main justification, they're implying a feeling of closure is worth a small but significant pile of innocent bodies. A potential example of this was just in the news today (see Ledell Lee).

Since the victim’s families have said as much. If my daughter is killed, I would want the killer killed. It would go a long way towards closure.

only the beginning of time

I am getting USSR vibes here

Where would here be?

How American is this country going to get?

Looking forward to SC tar-and-feathering people for parking infractions next.

Why not? It's fascinating the philosophical hoops we jump through to justify what is a disgusting, barbaric act however you actually do it. Anyone who supports the death penalty should be required by law to watch it carried out.

In my opinion we're (in the USA, at least) way too happy to offload tough moral calls onto "the collective".

I say, let's put it to a majority vote. Everyone who votes in favor of killing is put into the pool of executioners (just like jury duty). It's one thing to be abstractly in favor of killing as a punishment. It's another to look down the sights at a fellow being and pull the trigger.

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