Firing Squad!

SALT LAKE CITY -- Barring a last-minute reprieve, Ronnie Lee Gardner will be strapped into a chair, a hood will be placed over his head and a small white target will be pinned over his heart.
The order will come: "Ready, aim ..."
The 49-year-old convicted killer will be executed by five anonymous marksmen firing a matched set of .30-caliber rifles. He is to be the third person executed by firing squad in Utah -- or anywhere else in the U.S. -- since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Utah was a long holdout in keeping the method, which it has used in 40 of its 49 executions in the last 160 years. Utah lawmakers made lethal injection the default method of execution in 2004, but inmates condemned before then can still choose the firing squad.
That's what Gardner did in April, telling a judge, "I would like the firing squad, please." Neither he nor his attorneys have said why.
Critics call it a barbaric method that should have been relegated to the dustbin of the frontier era.
"The firing squad is archaic, it's violent and it simply expands on the violence that we already experience from guns as a society," Bishop John Wester of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City said during an April protest. The diocese is part of a new coalition pushing for alternatives to capital punishment in Utah.
Even some death-penalty supporters would prefer not to see the method used. State Rep. Sheryl Allen, a Republican from Bountiful who pushed for the switch to lethal injection, said the reprise of the firing squad shifts attention from the victim to the killer.
Gardner is to be executed shortly after midnight June 18. He was convicted of capital murder 25 years ago for the 1985 fatal courthouse shooting of attorney Michael Burdell during a botched escape attempt.
Allen said legislators allowed previously convicted inmates to keep the firing-squad option out of fear that changing the execution method would create a new avenue of appeal. Utah's switch to lethal injection was largely driven by an aversion to the negative worldwide publicity it received each time a firing squad was used.


Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/06/08/2249635/man-who-killed-lawyer-in-utah.html#ixzz0qK7KssMg
​

 

Interesting.

 

You're telling me. Even in Texas we do lethal injection.

 

They're going to die anyways, you might as well let them pick how they want to die...

 

Sounds good to me, more states should do this.
Probably cheaper than lethal injection.

Better yet, hang him. And let him hang in the jail yard for a few days so everyone in jail could see it.

 

I like it, and I'm all for public executions....maybe it would be a better deterrent that reading about it. Any of you guys read WWZ? Theres a part where the VP is talking about revisiting the penal code during a major crisis, discusses the use of stocks, chain gangs, public floggings.....

"Shame is a powerful weapon, No one wants to stand on a street corner with a sign that says "I stole my neighbors TV", but it only works if the majority of people are diong the right thing."

 

Either way, it's one less murderer in the prison system on our tax money.

 

I say make hanging viewable on a PBC station. I like the idea of then waling the streets with their crime written on their coveralls.

 

ya it is interesting. I think if i was going to die i would rather be shot than be killed by lethal injection. Probably cheaper too. The only negative consequence would be the psychological effects on the shooters.

 

I think that the kind of people that sign up for that, don't really give a damn about it, to have "psychological effects" from it. They can't wait for the warden to call their name off of the sign up sheet.

 

well they don't know who would kill the guy

so there are 5 shooters, 4 have bullets and 1 has a blank

 

i just turned 18 in march.

SIGN ME UP!!!!

 

im with you. I think they should bring back all the old ways of execution.. it sure as hell would cut down on the amount of murders and rapes that happen.

this does come in to play with what I said above.

I would probably be one of these guys. if it was a disturbing enough of a case, Id be willing to pop one in the leg... wait... one to the arm... wait... one to the groin... wait... shoulder, shoulder... wait.... then finish him off with one right between the eyes.

 

Very easy to tell the difference between a live round and a blank for the shooter.

 

I think the act of being up there, with a hood on and a target glued to my chest, and hearing those rifles rack one into the chamber; would almost be enough to give a heart attack.
I am for this type of execution. Cheaper, easier, and a lot more quick.

For the family of the victim that these people killed, there is no doubt that the person that killed your loved one, is dead.

 

I'm in full support of this type of execution as well. Here is why. Fact-It is cheaper. Fact-It is quicker IF the target is hit.

Im sure some people will say it is less painful for the lethal injection. This, however, is debatable. The first part of a lethal injection only serves to paralyze the person so that no emotion will be shown by them. Nobody has ever survived a lethal injection so we don't know for sure how much it actually hurts. Plus, if a .30cal hollow point rips through your chest at well over the speed of sound and hits the heart the body will instantly stop pumping blood before the nervous system is able to notice pain

 

If we are going to have the death penalty... who cares how they go. They should go the fastest and easiest way possible.
Not sit in a jail cell for years and years after being convicted. That is a waste of money!

 

Amen brother!

 

Thats friggin crazy, .30 cal to the heart

 

Why not a .50 BMG? Barret .50 cal FTW!