Utah lawmaker: Bring back firing squad executions
Source: Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- In the wake of a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma last month, a Utah lawmaker says he believes a firing squad is a more humane form of execution. And he plans to bring back that option for criminals sentenced to death in his state.
Rep. Paul Ray, a Republican from the northern Utah city of Clearfield, plans to introduce his proposal during Utah's next legislative session in January. Lawmakers in Wyoming and Missouri floated similar ideas this year, but both efforts stalled. Ray, however, may succeed. Utah already has a tradition of execution by firing squad, with five police officers using .30-caliber Winchester rifles to execute Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010, the last execution by rifle to be held in the state.
Ray argues the controversial method may seem more palatable now, especially as states struggle to maneuver lawsuits and drug shortages that have complicated lethal injections.
"It sounds like the Wild West, but it's probably the most humane way to kill somebody," Ray said.
Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UTAH_FIRING_SQUAD?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-05-17-02-29-00
Judi Lynn
(160,656 posts)God bless A.P. for sharing what this exalted, transcendent being hath spoken.
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You know, whenever you want to kill someone, you don't want to be an ass about it and really torment him/her just because you can. Noooooooo. You must rise about that stuff, and have the state police gun him/her down, let him/her soak the earth where he/she stood with his/her blood.
That IS the Republican way. They are saints, aren't they?
jmowreader
(50,580 posts)A LOT of people who've died by lethal injection were stabbed repeatedly for many minutes because it isn't easy to find a vein in an IV drug addict...which many murderers are. The drugs don't work as advertised a lot of the time. People wake up during the second one. And it takes a while for that shit to take effect. Ask Joseph Clark how humane the lethal injection is...this is the guy in Ohio that asked for something by mouth to end it.
OTOH, you let someone get shot with rifles by five expert marksmen, he dies right then. If you HAVE to have a death penalty, firing squad is better than lethal injection.
Shemp Howard
(889 posts)It's not unknown for a condemned prisoner to deliberately dehydrate himself before a lethal injection execution.
jmowreader
(50,580 posts)Shemp Howard
(889 posts)Exposethefrauds
(531 posts)and hangings to murder it's citizens.
Soon this will be legislation in all the red states where murdering it's citizens is considered sport.
7962
(11,841 posts)warrior1
(12,325 posts)That's the problem they've been having. I can't get the drugs from drug companies and doctor's have taken oaths against do harm. That's why all the secrecy about what kind of drugs they are using.
Rachel Maddow has been covering this story for a couple of weeks since the botched execution in OK.
IMO, just give them life in prison.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)Pukes LOVE that killing!
SallyAnn
(12 posts)I'm not a puke, but I do believe some people deserve to be executed. Any person molesting a child, any rapist who rapes a child or an elderly woman, anyone who kills another person on purpose, those types should be executed, as they contribute nothing but pain and misery to our society. However, they do need a fair trial first, and be found guilty by a jury of their peers. Then take them out and execute them right away. Quit wasting the taxpayer's money coddling these monsters.
Jazzgirl
(3,744 posts)NT
They_Live
(3,242 posts)for "anyone who kills another person on purpose". See the irony there?
It's also more expensive to execute than for them to serve a life sentence.
...and also that "fair trial" thing has been an issue in many death penalty cases.
randys1
(16,286 posts)I get the emotion behind the desire but many things in life are simple
wrong...no question
Now, what might help is if we televised some brutal thing like firing squad, let the people see exactly what it is they are saying they want and is being done in their name
marble falls
(57,427 posts)KansDem
(28,498 posts)Start with those murderers who lied us into war, killing 100,000s of people!
Oh, wait...you meant those "other" murderers?
I see...as long as you won't include all murderers, then f*ck you and your firing squad!
BootinUp
(47,209 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)It's so traditional.
jmowreader
(50,580 posts)LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)Paladin
(28,281 posts)...for a good write-up on the whole blood atonement thing, and firing squads. (Great book about Gary Gilmore.)
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Turbineguy
(37,392 posts)always looking to a better way to kill people.
randys1
(16,286 posts)what we need to spend our money on and even defy courts for is killing people
the republican way
Have I mentioned lately that if you are still a republican you are an enemy of humankind?
quadrature
(2,049 posts)IV drug user with a needle for an hour to find a vein.
allan01
(1,950 posts)no one has shown me that excicutions have detereed crime .
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)by the executed felon.
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)People want blood, then let them see blood and "heads rolling". That's even quicker than a firing squad. Let those who called for the death penalty all cut the rope as a death team, like a WalMart opening.
I think this is sarcasm, but not quite sure. Like war, we keep them going mainly because we're "protected" from the ugliness and despotism and pure, heartless bloodshed.
I cannot ever get "unsee" the photo of the little naked Vietnamese girl burning with napalm that literally ended the Vietnam War.
I cynically believe that it was allowed only because the higher ups wanted the very expensive war they had thought would be another cakewalk to stop and needed to sway back the public opinion to sanity in order to support them in ending the war. But, no matter the reason, she was being disfigured by our tax dollars, although amazingly, she did survive.