If you kill someone in South Carolina, they now stand ready to kill you back. With difficulties in obtaining the drugs needed for lethal injections, the Palmetto State once again has accommodations for firing squad executions in addition to Ol’ Sparky, the electric chair for carrying out death sentences.
Yes, for those who don’t want to ride the lightning, thanks to improvements made to the execution chamber at Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia, death row inmates now can opt for a firing squad.
After a ten-year long pause in carrying out executions, there’s a line 35 inmates deep ready for execution of their death sentences, including two who would have died last June, but the firing squad hadn’t yet been reauthorized.
The Greenville News has the story . . .
South Carolina is now prepared to carry out executions by firing squad, the state Department of Corrections told the state Attorney General’s office on Friday.
Once approval comes from the state Supreme Court, the death sentences facing the state’s 35 death-row inmates can follow.
Law passed in May 2021 makes the electric chair the state’s primary means of execution while giving inmates the option of choosing death by firing squad or lethal injection if those methods are available.
While a lack of lethal-injection drugs has made that alternative unavailable, the state now has procedures and facilities in place for firing squads, the Department of Corrections announced Friday afternoon…
Apparently they can’t just put the death row inmates against a wall or in a folding chair in front of a berm.
The South Carolina Department of Corrections spent about $53,600 to establish a firing squad and renovate its execution facility, according to Department of Corrections spokesperson Chrysti Shain. That includes a number of rifles — exactly how many was redacted in a response to a records request by The Greenville News — and it includes renovations to the capital-punishment facility, stainless steel sheeting, ammunition and ballistic partitions, according to invoices obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. …
Unlike Utah, which uses a five-member firing squad, South Carolina will have three law-enforcement officers in its firing squad, and all three will have live rounds, while in Utah at least one rifle fires non-lethal bullets.
Members of South Carolina’s firing squad are volunteers from within the state Department of Corrections who meet certain qualifications, according to the department.
I’m glad the government is getting reading to shoot convicted murderers dead. If you’re not supporting disarming the cops. Who shoot dead on sight the guilty and the innocent. Then don’t complain about the government killing people.
btw
Repeal all those laws that are in my way of killing criminals dead on sight. When they rob, rape, steal, murder, break into or vandalize private property. Or they become a general nuisance. After they are repeatedly told to leave and stop violating the rights of other people.
This way the government will become much smaller.
I’m not excited about the firing squads. Nope. You don’t need the lethal injections either. All you need a chamber to put the prisoner in, and then a nitrogen bottle that can be found at any weld supply shop. It is the most humane way. And Humane is our goal. We want to be not monstrous. We want to be the opposite of emotional monsters. That means applying justice while not acting like a monster. And we don’t need firing squads blasting prisoners to be executed into spaghetti. It’s ridiculous. No. If they couldn’t afford a “nitrogen chamber” for execution because that tax money couldn’t be allocated – Then they can tape a plastic bag over their head and inflate the bag with nitrogen gas. It is quick and easy and painless, and less monstrous than them screaming about the burning lethal injection going down their arm, or some poison gas, electrocution, or any of that nonsense.
Forced inhalation of nitrogen gas is just death by asphyxiation, which is pretty damned monstrous, just the thing one would expect from someone ashamed to sign his name.
The point of judicial capital punishment is to eliminate the convicted capital felony by a quick and painless method. Quick and painless is hard to achieve, unfortunately. The search for a quick and painless means of killing preoccupied judicial reformers of the 18th and 19th. They settled on two, standard drop hanging and decapitation by machine (i.e. the guillotine). Penology has seldom favored the firing squad, however. When done correctly both hanging and decapitation inflict instant unconsciousness followed by clinical death within seconds. Done incorrectly or maliciously both can be agonizing and prolonged, though the guillotine is much easier adequately maintain, test, and operate.
California used standard drop hanging (4 to 6 feet) until Gordon Stewart Northcott’s botched hanging on 2 October 1930. A slack rope strangled him to death in 13 minutes. As result, California banned the gallows and adopted lethal gas, hydrogen cyanide.
France used the guillotine from 1792 until 1981. During the revolution, the French republic keep statistics on their mechanical decapitations, which showed a failure rate, a failure being an execution requiring more than one stroke of the blade, of about 0.05 percent, which was deemed far more humane than any form of capital punishment previously used by the Ancien Régime.
Death by firing squad is very problematic. Firstly, there’s the matter of assembling the firing squad — you need honest marksmen who will do the duty dispassionately, which means a thorough psychological screening of the applicants. The State of South Carolina should not be in the business of providing thrill rides for psychopaths. Secondly, even competent marksmen miss from time to time. In 1945 twelve hand-picked riflemen of the 109th Infantry Regiment fired eleven rounds at convicted deserter Eddie Slovik from seven yards and failed to kill him instantly. Four bullets wounded Slovik sufficiently that he died within five minutes.
No it’s not! Are you kidding? They have been waiting years to be executed. They could see it coming months, years ahead of time. Do you think for one second, right before they were executed, the guard suddenly said, “Hey buddy! You are getting executed in 2 minutes. Pinch it off. Let’s go.” Of course not. The execution is no surprise to them at all, be it a nitrogen gas chamber, an electric chair, poison gas, a firing squad, or a lethal injection. Now out of those mentioned, the most humane, again, is a nitrogen gas chamber. It is the LEAST monstrous among them. Yes it might take 2-5 minutes for them to die. But all that will happen is they will get sleepy and drift off. The others have a degree of pain associated with them. Nitrogen gas is guaranteed no pain. In fact, Switzerland uses them for suicide chambers:
https://www.exitinternational.net/sarco/assisted-suicide-chamber-approved-by-authorities-in-switzerland/
Excuse me? Who the f*** are you? I’ve been here at TTAG for 10 years. You can f*** off! Further, the validity of my argument does not depend on my name, you idiot.
They have been on death row for years. So what does an extra 2 minutes matter? It’s not like the 2 minutes are going to be painful. Why don’t you ask the inmates what they want. Painless nitrogen gas or a firing squad. Don’t delude yourself!
anonymous , that is a result of the appeals system. Should that appeals system be shortened? That is a legal question to be argued in the courts and the state and federal legislatures. In fact in states that have multiple methods of execution, it is the choice the convict gets to make.
Minor MINER49er If that included you, you would not be permitted to vote as you have little or no understanding of the Constitution and your obligations under that sacred document.
I remember watching this the first time, way back in the day when it was first broadcast. Clint Smith is correct. Some people do deserve to be shot.
“Clint Smith from Thunder Ranch – 60 minutes clip” video 1 min long
We should never allow the authorities of the state to kill the citizens, they get it wrong far too often.
WVSP’s Fred Zain comes to mind:
“At the request of the West Virginia State Police, Kanawha County Prosecutor William Forbes began a criminal investigation. Forbes was so disturbed by what he found that he asked the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia to appoint a special judge and a panel of lawyers and scientists to investigate the serology department.[7] On November 4, 1993, Senior Circuit Court Judge James Holliday issued a report finding that Zain had engaged in a staggering litany of misconduct and outright fraud. According to the report, Zain had misstated evidence, falsified laboratory results and reported scientifically implausible results that may have resulted in as many as 134 people being convicted wrongfully. Holliday claimed that Zain’s misconduct was so egregious that any testimony offered by Zain should be presumed as prima facie “invalid, unreliable, and inadmissible”. It also found serious deficiencies in the serology division’s quality-control procedures. The Supreme Court unanimously accepted Holliday’s report on November 12, terming Zain’s actions “egregious violations of the right of a defendant to a fair trial” and a “corruption of our legal system”
MinorIQ,
I’m sure there was a “brilliant” point, buried somewhere in that . . . digression.
NO ONE on this forum has EVER suggested that cops and politicians are necessarily right, or even good people. Thanks for playing, @$$hole.
YOU, on the other hand, want to disarm me, and “defund” the local police. Osculate my anal sphincter, MajorStupidity.
“YOU, on the other hand, want to disarm me, and “defund” the local police“
Nope, total bullshit from you.
I think any sane, non-felon adult should be allowed to own firearms.
I think people should be required to have mandatory classroom instruction regarding rights & obligations and demonstrate proficiency on the a live-fire range before they are allowed to carry firearms in the public spaces.
Your attempts to mischaracterize my position are childlike, I think you just like the anger because it satisfies your need for conflict and strife, a need caused by your adverse childhood experiences.
MajorStupidity,
I’m sorry, show me the part of the 2A that limits the right to “. . . sane, non-felon adult[s] . . . “. Somehow, I missed that – along with the definition of “sane”, the definition of “non-felon”, and the definition of “adult”. Perhaps that’s the reason I find your posts so incomprehensible. Are you reading from a diferent “Constitution” than the rest of us???
As far as seeking conflict, no, dimwit, YOU come on here asserting asinine positions, that have NO grounding in the actual Constitution, and PRETEND to be “rational”.
Tell us again how Article I, Section 8 authorizes general, population-wide “gun control”. Or just STFU, and stop pretending to be anything than a Leftist/fascist propagandist.
And tell us how our EVER so competent government is going to insure our education and training. The “government” can’t even freakin’ teach Dick and Jane how to read and write, you pathetic Leftist/fascist loon.
I also think people should be required to have mandatory classroom instruction regarding voting rights & obligations.
They should demonstrate proficiency on the constitution before they are allowed to cast a vote in public spaces.
“I’m glad the government is getting reading to shoot convicted murderers dead.”
TTAG’s Jon Wayne Taylor has managed to change my P.O.V. on the death penalty. Governments shouldn’t be in the business of killing their citizens.
Give them life without parole in the general population…
My conversion to opposing the death penalty came back in 2008 or so. At a state judiciary committee hearing an anti death penalty activist mentioned that she had an SKS. This naturally lead me to engage her in conversation. Turns out she was fully in favor of victims shooting their attackers dead, just not in favor of the GOVERNMENT doing it. The light bulb came on for me when I realized in that moment that if I don’t want the government doing anything else, why would I want them deciding who lives or dies? After that the number of convicted people who were subsequently exonerated by DNA or other advancing technologies solidified my position.
The Crimson Pirate The government doesn’t decide. A jury of 12 just and true do.
The problem with the anti-death penalty crowd is that they are also supporters of a big intrusive government. In fact the people who speak about being anti-death penalty are also very much Anti Second Amendment. It is why I have never trusted them.
Because they have never been on the side of crime victims. They are very Pro criminal. In their attitudes and their actions.
They use every excuse they can come up with, to explain away the criminal actions of the degenerates.
The anti-death penalty crowd has never believed in the use of righteous violence in defense of the innocent. Righteous violence committed by the innocent. in defense of themselves. Or in defense of their loved ones. Or even in defense of total strangers.
They never show up with a sign saying “let us kill him instead of the government doing it.”.
Working in criminal justice, I met people who seemed irredeemable, unfixable (except through a miracle). Dangerous, dangerous, people. Yet, I cannot fathom giving government the warrant to kill its citizens or guests. Law enforcement corruption, abuse, and mis-behavior happens across all levels. There is little true justice.
Protecting society is not a license to kill when there is no immediate threat. Not for the beat cops, not for the judges, not for the juries, not for the wardens.
It is a difficult, emotional topic. Murder as punishment may satisfy vengeance, and may be more economical than life-imprisonment, but licensing the government to kill as punishment exceeds the power I want my government to have.
That being said, I am making a list of government and political party officials I would like to see hanged.
I did say this is a difficult issue.
😉
Kinda my take on it as well.
There’s no shortage of people who would better the world by departing, but I have certain trust issues with the government irrespective of who’s in office. I had some fairly serious legal worries years ago (false accusations, pre trial lockup time for nearly a year when in order to force a plea bargain some game playing with the dangerousness hearing was done. I took no pleas and was found not guilty on all counts BTW) but the fact that the prosecutor was OK with this served as a pointed reminder to me that the vaunted Public Trust is Not To Be Trusted lightly.
DNA has been used to give convicted murderers the death penalty. The anti’s forget to mention that part. The “East Area Rapist” later to be called “the Golden State killer” was identified and put into prison using DNA samples they were well over 40 years old.
DNA is not a “get out of jail” free card.
DNA can only prove that your DNA was present at a place. It cannot prove how it got there, it cannot prove whether or not you committed a crime at that place and cannot really determine guilt or innocence.
DNA cannot determine that you were NOT at a location unless every bit of billions of DNA samples at a place are tested, which would take centuries.
Lifesavor, do you know of any convicted murdered who was given the death sentence who ever came back to do it again?
The government is not “executing” these criminals. The jury passed a sentence and the Dept of Corrections is carrying out the will of the people. The law has prescribed the death penalty and the circumstances under which it is to be administered.
I’ve also been in the Criminal Justice system as a Police Officer and as a Corrections Sergeant. My heart does not bleed for these criminals. I have seen wanton violence take place inside the prisons ( arrested and got written confessions from the convict with Miranda warnings written into the confessions) where a convict stabbed another convict. Once it was over the “victim convict” changing the TV channel.
These people do not deserve mercy. They deserve the full measure of the law.
As a 28 year veteran of the federal prison system I agree with you, but there needs to be an exception to that when an inmate in prison murders staff or another inmate. In those cases the murderer needs to have a trial and then if found guilty an execution date set and the execution completed. I retired in 2003 and for most of my career there was no ability to sentence a federal inmate to death for those murders. When all that you can punish those people with is another life sentence they could care less.
Geoff:
I can remember debating the death penalty in high school back in the nineteen fifties. At the time, someone made the argument that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent to murder as evidenced by statistics showing that states having the death penalty also have the highest murder rates. That was long ago, and no, I can’t quote a reference because I’m too lazy to look for one.
Anyway, I agree with you and JWT that the state should not be in the business of killing its own people. The very real possibility of false convictions is one argument against capital punishment, but I have always thought that, in addition, the existence of capital punishment in a society brutalizes that society.
It happens that I live in Michigan, and I have always been proud of the fact that Michigan was the first state in the union to outlaw capital punishment. The only executions in Michigan going back more than a hundred years have been done by the Feds for federal crimes. I seem to recall that there has only been one of those (maybe for treason).
The State is NOT “killing its own people”. A jury of 12 just and true make that decision.
If you kill someone you deserve to forfeit your life. Especially if you kill a correction or police officer.
to Dave G
A uniformed police officer with a sidearm is a deterrent to crime. He or she is not a perfect deterrent to crime. And there is no such thing as a perfect deterrent to crime. But as it has been stated over and over again, on TTAG and elsewhere. An armed Society is a much more polite Society.
More guns less crime is true statement.
The threat of a criminal being killed by their victim is indeed a deterrent to the murderer.
The anti-death penalty crowd are utopians. They only want a “perfect deterrence” to a murderer. There is no such thing. However the death penalty is perfect in preventing a murderer from murdering again.
The ones who complain about the United States having what they claim is the largest prison population in the world. Are also against making that population smaller by allowing the victims to shoot criminals dead on sight.
The proper open carrying of side arms or long guns, by law-abiding civilians, has always been a deterrent to crime. And when you do it you need to be aware of your surroundings. Just like a police officer who open carries their weapon, has to be aware of his surroundings as well.
I’m not sure I’d say that it “brutalizes” the society.
But it certainly debases both society and the concept of law having a philosophical base since the death penalty is in direct conflict with the philosophical underpinnings of nearly all other Western law governing potentially violent human interaction.
The most glaringly obvious, but certainly not the only, one being that, say, you shoot someone twice and they’re lying on the floor no longer a threat you or anyone else. You will be charged with murder if you walk up and put a third round in their head. This is because the person is no longer a threat and therefore lethal or potentially lethal force against them is no longer morally/ethically permissible. Threat can be morally/ethically met with force but lack of threat cannot be.
However, the State allows itself to ignore the moral/ethical framework. The State has the ability to arrest the person, rehab them in a hospital, try them and then lock the person in a cage for some period of time (removing their ability to threaten others) and then come back and kill them later.
Yet if you did something similar, patched up the guy on the floor and then kept him in a cage your basement for a year and a half (or decades) before killing him you’d not just be guilty of murder, you’d be the one on death row in many states since this is now totally inexcusable as being some sort of totally twisted vengeance plot and you should know better. Now you’re getting the needle.
The State need not know better because it makes the rules. As Mel Brooks pointed out: “It’s good to be the King”.
strych9 As philosophy is not a science but a collection of ideas of other people, I do not find it to be a very effective argument for doing away with the death penalty. Most of “philosophy” is Leftist leaning at best. It is based on something quite less than common sense.
How is the “state ignoring” anything? The fact is that the criminal who committed murder was found guilty by a jury of his peers due to a preponderance of evidence. The murderer deserves nothing less than forfeiting his/her own life for the one they took without justification.
The appeals process allows for a systematic and complete review of the case before execution. While I do think that it could be expedited to make it more timely, I am not against the appeals process per se. You can call it :”vengeance” if you like and while it is impossible to determine if there is any deterrent value, you can safely say that you cannot find any executed murderer who came back to repeat their crime.
I never said that philosophy is a science (though philosophy of science is a very valid thing). But it’s also not just a collection of ideas.
I mean, is the Bible just a “collection of ideas”? To Leftists, yes. To Christians it most certainly is not.
Legal Philosophy (if you want a good primer I suggest “Philosophy of Law” by Feinberg or you can look up the individual writings in the book for free online if you just grab the index, the book’s like $450 in most cases) isn’t just ideas. It’s the ideas that have survived the test of time. It’s mostly a comprehensive study of why people obey law codes and why they don’t, which is the 5000 year study of what sort of law codes work and which ones fall by the wayside.
In this regard, saying “it’s just ideas” is basically akin to standing on top of a tall building and jumping off while yelling “Gravity is just an idea!!!!”. It’s not going to end well.
The people who started the US thought long and hard about this and studied where things worked and where they failed. Which is to say they looked at how ideas had interacted with reality and what worked and what didn’t.
We’ve gotten to a point that is very, very far away from that and we’re paying a price.
===
The issue here is that this is exactly how you end up with what’s colloquially known as an “Irish Democracy” (people just ignoring the government in most cases).
People internalize laws that make rational sense. They look at blatant hypocrisy and self-dealing with disgust. They tend to ignore rules that exist just for the sake of being rules. When the government’s law system falls into such behavior it loses validity with the public and you end up with a form of anarchy, which is undesirable.
The classic example here is stop signs. They exist for a reason that makes sense. Following their instruction (the law) lines up with the reality that oncoming traffic is dangerous.
But (and this experiment was done) if you randomly put stop signs everywhere they still have the force of law behind them and become nearly universally ignored because their placement makes no sense. When 98% of sign placement makes no sense the 2% that does make sense becomes background noise that people simply ignore.
This is the danger of undermining the philosophy of law. Don’t believe it? Look at places with “Soros backed DAs” and you’ll see exactly what I mean. The law no longer matters to a great many people and that number grows daily. That’s exceedingly corrosive.
====
As for what the state is ignoring here, it’s the underlying framework of legal and philosophical thought that govern logical human interactions.
It’s unacceptable for you to put that “anchor shot” in the head of the bad guy on your floor. But is he not a bad guy? Is he not surely guilty? Of course he is. And there is no mechanism for a “rubber stamp” where it would become acceptable for you to simply execute the guy once he’s no longer a threat.
But the state reserves the right to do exactly that via a process that circumvents the logic behind ethical self-defense. Where, in fact, you might actually have a more ethical reason to shoot the guy again because you’d end his suffering in certain circumstances. The State goes out of it’s way to 1. prolong that suffering and 2. make it survivable until the guy can be “processed” and killed later.
This undermines the fundamental principle that it’s only acceptable to kill people who present a threat of death or great bodily harm to others. A guy locked in a cage doesn’t present that (except in certain very limited circumstances where they can control a network of criminals/terrorists outside the prison).
Ergo, the state has no more right to kill someone the state has incapacitated (imprisoned) than you have to kill someone who you’ve incapacitated (shot twice, in this example) and the laws promulgated by the state with regards to you recognize this because you’ll be charged if you do the “bad” thing. This is a system the state controls via an assumed monopoly on violence (coercion).
So the state is acting in a hypocritical way that undermine the base underpinnings of self-defense. The state should stop doing that IMHO.
strych9 Excuse me? The Bible is a book of historical fact. The only people who say otherwise are agnostics and atheists.
As to the law book that has “stood the test of time” it is still a book of ideas. Ideas are NOT facts.
The Communist Manifesto by Marx is a book of ideas, i.e.: philosophy. Does that book stand the test of time? I think not. I am sure that Marx also “thought long and hard” but that adds no credence to his philosophy which proposes a failed philosophy. If you pass a stop sign you accept the consequences of that act especially if there is a police officer there or have an traffic mishap. Your analogy falls flat.
I repeat, if you take a life in other than self defense or in an act of war, you have forfeited your right to life and that forfeit should be enforced by the state. The murder of a police officer or a government official, is an attack on all of society. Society should provide those protectors of society with a measure of safety and deterrence. If a person kills a police officer, that person should know that the state in the person of the jury will exact the ultimate punishment.
Need a prison island. That way you don’t have to house them, feed them, pay money to take care of them. Better to just find a large island, and dump them there.
Bikini Island
possum. Sounds like a direct to video Roger Corman movie.
“Members of South Carolina’s firing squad are volunteers from within the state Department of Corrections who meet certain qualifications, according to the department.”
I wonder if they had a lot of volunteers.
Cheap, quick, efficient…..about time!! Now if we could just do away with endless appeals!
If pistol calibers were used we could extract real pistol defence caliber ballistics data used on different build bodies. Forget the limp wrist and jello fake data pushed by the inept FBI creeps.
What a waste of hard to find ammo.
Rope is in plentiful Supply. And it’s a lot cheaper than ammunition. And it even simulates the the near exact same way, the murderer killed their victims.
Hey Ralph, wise up and read my previous reply
I am against the .gov having the right to execute the citizens. .gov seldom, if ever, gets anything right.
Killing its own is the mark of a bad .gov.
“Killing its own is the mark of a bad .gov.”
Amen… 🙁
jwm,
I support government carrying out the death sentence on extremely heinous crimes where there is absolutely no doubt that the accused did the heinous deed. An example is a case where there is indisputable evidence such as video of the crime which clearly shows the identity of the attacker.
“video of the crime”
Meanwhile, they’re perfecting deepfake technology. Just wait until they can perfect the audio as well. We’ve already seen how far the powers that be are willing to go along with false charges.
good point.`
One could argue that requiring the productive to pay for the upkeep of those who aren’t and never will be is also the mark of a bad government.
Or that guaranteeing a murderer’s “right” to a better outcome than the murder victim is the mark of a government that has forfeited any claim on obedience to its laws.
Or that, as “John” pointed out above (with one ridiculously narrow example), it is very easy to reach a point of diminishing returns when you tie the hands of justice and not the criminals’. Who gives a s#it about the seventh life sentence (under any circumstances)?
Good God almighty JWM finally got something right for a change.
Fake dacian.
Lil’d doesn’t like executing criminals. They can gain penance through labor.
He’s more into executing class enemies at the edge of the pit.
I’m not sure it’s the fake.
And I can say, today I agree with jwn and Geoff. The state gets it wrong, through incompetence or corruption, far too often to allow them to kill people.
Miner. I would never refer to myself as the’ good God almighty jwm’ but it has a certain ring to it.
I always knew one day we would be on the same team jwm.
Welcome to my world, sky daddy.
Still waiting on you to do the same.
fake dacian. You can tell by the juvenile attitude.
Yikes.
I support executions for cisgendered heteronormative male white privileged patriarchy. Everyone else, I don’t support execution of. And in general, don’t support execution by a government made up of morons who “vote.” The entire reason we have executions right now, is the same reason we have gun control, and pursuits of safe storage laws and universal background checks: Bigots – voting.
I love LGBTQF@CK because they’re self-extincting, like all good phreaks.
I agree with these points. When is the last time the government has done anything right? Pretty much never. They screw up everything. I can’t even go to the DMV or the post office without wasting an hour of my time and then getting stuck with a service I don’t want.
I am for the death penalty on humanitarian grounds. If we were debating letting these prisoners free you would have a point. But we are not. Society is just killing them slowly by letting them rot.
Long term confinement is a form of torture. All men will die sometime. But torture is “unnatural” definitely “cruel” and “unusual” when compared to mere death. I am not calling you or anyone who is anti-death penalty a “coward” but the arguments against the death penalty do seem cowardly and hypocritical when the alternative is long term (even permanent) confinement a.k.a. torture.
The state wields the sword so to speak and not just with the death penalty. Cops and members of the military kill when needed. Yes, they get it wrong sometimes but that does not mean we get rid of cops or the military. It is not any better if someone is wrongly convicted and dies in prison decades later verses execution at the hands of the state. Does the state loose the power to incarcerate when it has wrongfully incarcerated people? Killing men and women slowly verses quickly might make you feel better but many prisoners agree with me as they attempt suicide due to their tortuous state. If a nation has the balls to kidnap and confine someone it should have the balls to kill that same person. Give them liberty or give them death.
Well said.
You are a liberal creep. The number 1 deterrent of capital crimes is capital punishment.
The easiest, cheapest and arguably the most humane way to execute prisoners is with a commonly available medical face mask that is connected to 100% Nitrogen. 78% of the Earth’s atmosphere is Nitrogen Gas. By delivering 100% Nitrogen, with no oxygen, the person passes and out and dies from asphyxiation.
You can buy Nitrogen commercially or extract it from the atmosphere with commercially available equipment. The gas is not toxic or hazardous and is safe to handle. It is a common industrial gas in liquid and gaseous form. Besides being safe, the gas can’t be restricted or embargoed like drugs used for lethal injection.
The other advantage is it is hard (for most) courts to argue that Nitrogen is cruel and unusual punishment, as the judge is literally breathing in and out Nitrogen as they read their ruling.
The Gas Chamber, Electrocution, Hanging, Firing Squads, Lethal Injection, etc. have had their day. All are expensive, complicated and some are considered cruel, as death is not seen as peaceful and non-violent. When I see these “New” proposals, it just tells me how dumb the people in charge really are.
You could just drive the condemned over to Costco and hook them up to the nitrogen tire filling machine.
As an anesthesiologist, I completely agree with you.
I don’t see why an execution has to resemble an anesthetic.
We have a lot of research on people breathing hypoxic gas mixtures.
The one I’m most familiar with is anchor lockers on ships.
The rusting of the chain remove the oxygen from the compartment.
Anyone who enters will be unconscious in a minute or two and dead in three minutes.
Call OSHA regulations require ventilating of these compartments, there are plenty of industrial accidents where the first person to enter collapsed and others went in to try to rescue them.
It is usually the secondary people who are pulled out and revived.
The universally report they had no symptoms of any kind until they collapsed.
It would be a completely humane way to execute people to expose them to a 100% nitrogen atmosphere.
No need to use medical people to start IVs or order medicines or administer them.
There was a tragedy where a subcontractor was hired to go into empty fuel storage tanks charged with nitrogen. Guys went in with dust masks. Others outside saw them and ran in to save them and dropped. Only one guy figured it out and held his breath. He saved a few before he collapsed outside.
Nobody detected anything, they just passed out. Humans have only a simple detector of excess CO2. Nothing else. This is why welding gas for MIG is a CO2 mix.
Criminals typically do not give their victims a choice of how they will die. Those criminals should not get a choice either. However, I would be in favor of death for the criminal by the same means, as closely as possible to duplicate, as their victim died……beating, gunshot, strangulation… That would in essence be giving the criminal a choice how they would die…..also giving them a choice to live by not killing a victim in the first place.
Regarding my immediately prior comment, Comment Editor died and would not allow me to add the following: By executing the criminal in the same manner as which they killed their victim, it would avoid the issue of “cruel and unusual punishment” as the criminal would essentially be choosing their own method of execution. Shooting for a shooting, beating for a beating,…..”Eye for an eye”…almost sounds Biblical.
Not sure how you would handle aggravated rape; the volunteers would probably merit as much scrutiny as the condemned.
Reminded me of the old joke Death by Kawabunga
This is long overdue justice. If the consequence for murder is not made extremely costly for the perp then what’s to stop them? Only thing I see wrong is being so picky, picky about who does the shooting. It would be much more fitting if the firing squad consisted of law abiding citizens who submitted their names for a drawing. As far as race, gender factoring in for who does the shooting that is irrelevant because any person no matter their race or gender can legally stop a murder by any means necessary and IMO that should carry over to participating in a firing squad.
So which nation, on a per capita basis has the most murders, the USA or the UK [or France. or Germany or Spain or Canada, or New Zealand or indeed most of the civilised world]. or which does NOT have capital punishment. Tee fact is that whilst Capital Punishement does probably have it’s advantages, it save expensive incarceration for one thing, no serious study of the subject has EVER shown a deterent effect for 75% of murders commited except for very specific situations, such as in the UK the Death sentence for shooting a Police Officer was madatory or using a firearm in the furtherence of a crime resulting in death with no possibility of appeal and sentence carried out in a specific time . NO spending twenty years on Death Row in the UK .
The real dacian.
Hey! Prince Albert in a can. I don’t give a shit what the murder rate is in Great Britain. France, Canada, New Zealand or Australia. Do you know why? I don’t live in those places, you idiot. I live in the United States of America. The only murder rate I’m worried about is the one happening while I’m standing there. Morons. There should be a bounty on them. Wait!! Forget I said that! Then there really would be an ammo shortage.
Yeah, Gadsden, the bounty would have to be AT LEAST enough to cover the (increased) cost of ammunition. Maybe we could provide subsidy payments to the ammunition manufacturers????
When I read your suggestion about the firing squad consisting of citizens’ names drawn, I couldn’t help but think there’s GOTTA be the occasional wiseacre aiming for a gut shot, or worse!
“If the consequence for murder is not made extremely costly for the perp then what’s to stop them?”
Armed would-be victims? Duh?
I don’t see why they need a firing “squad” at all. A given number of laser sighed rifles mounted in fixtures with remote operated triggers. The same official that pushes the button on the syringe machine or throws the power switch can operate the firing mechanism. Having the laser print on the condemned would verify for the spectators where the shots were placed.
Thailand uses a full auto mag dump from an MP5 set in a rest
Do they aim it at the head, torso or, for rapist-murderers, the nads ?
Sounds like a great system.
“While a lack of lethal-injection drugs has made that alternative unavailable…”
Oh my gosh, it really isn’t that hard ladies and gentlemen. A nice huge syringe full of pretty much any opiate is promptly fatal. Just give the prisoner 50 CCs of heroin or morphine and it is lights out, permanently.
Having said that, on the cost side of the equation, a few cartridges are probably less expensive than 50 CCs of opiate, at least for the time being.
Serious question. When vets are euthanizing your pets, are they lining them up on a firing squad because lethal-injection drugs are unavailable? I guess it has to be a very specific, approved drug for criminals, and activists intentionally created a shortage to make it difficult to carry out the death penalty.
Historically, companies didn’t want to participate in assisting a state kill someone, as is the company’s right to refuse to assist in. No one here would argue that a medical device/product manufacturer is required to sell to Planned Parenthood, would they?
Vets generally use products called Fatal-Plus (pentobarbital sodium), Euthasol (phenytoin sodium and pentobarbital sodium) or SleepAway (also pentobarbital). Phenytoin, an anticonvulsant at normal doses, is currently in critical shortage nationwide, pentobarbital was in critical shortage for most of last year. (Yet another one of those things that should worry you in some regards due to why this is happening which has to do with the fact that we don’t make fuck-all in this country anymore.) These solutions (or powders in some cases) are manufactured for euthanasia but specifically NOT for use in people. Every single fact sheet says things like “Animal use ONLY”.
IIRC, the company that makes Fatal-Plus did do a short run of a solution made for human euthanasia in either Oregon or Washington and then decided that even though this was a situation where the person decided to kill themselves that the company would not participate due to the potential that someone could be pressured into using the product or it could be used against someone who was incapacitated and unable to decide.
It does work quite well in a veterinary setting, I can attest to having seen Fatal-Plus at work followed by a dose of Phenytoin for good measure.
===
Historically however in regards to the death penalty, it’s not a shortage, it’s a refusal to sell. At first some states went to compounding pharmacies but those eventually started to decline to sell them the drugs too.
With human beings, selling drugs specifically designed to kill them is a bit of a sticky ethical wicket for medicine companies, and all the lethal injection protocols that I know of are based around ODing someone on one drug or another (sometimes a combo).
We don’t live in a country where the government can compel the company to make and sell something to the government if it goes against the company’s morals/ethics, which are subject to change over time. The government also cannot lie about the intended use to obtain the drugs, because that’s known as “fraud”.
==
Quite frankly, I’m not really sure why it is that some people are so hot to have the state take people’s lives.
I can only support this if they use PSA rifles. 1 of 5 shooters are supposed to be a dud so they won’t even need to spend extra on buying the blank round. Lmao. JK.
All for it in principle. However the population including the government is wicked and retarded. See the media and Rittenhouse prosecutors. If I were the governor I’d have to commute most or all the death sentences since a jury of my peers means potentially a jury of boot licking morons.
and probley only 5 or less out of a100 know anything about jury nullifcation
Stateisevil, Get a grip. Maybe your heart bleeds for these criminals, but mine sure doesn’t.
Stateisevil,
I don’t think ” . . . a jury of my peers means potentially a jury of boot licking morons.” is quite the flex you think it is. But you do you.
Out of all the industrialized nations the U.S. is one of the few sick and sadistic societies that has State Sponsored murder.
Well over 5,000 years of civilization have conclusively proven that state sponsored murder executions do not prevent deranged people from committing murder.
We look back with horror when the Far Right executed women for being Witches ( and they would do it again if given the chance) but someday when science finds a cure to prevent people from committed most murders the world will look back at the U.S. as one of the most ignorant and violent and sick industrialized societies on earth.
State sponsored murder does not prevent murder and is only a sick sort of revenge that does not help the victims find closure at all.
State sponsored murder is a feel good sadism that the Far Right find a warped form of sexual excitement in.
Most wars are also caused by the Far Right and most political violence comes from these violent sick people as well.
State Sponsored murder is also prejudiced and racist as white people avoid the death penalty at a far greater rate than minorities do.
And lastly when you make a mistake and murder an innocent prisoner you cannot correct that mistake. Several decades ago court records proved that at least well over 250 innocent people were executed in the U.S. that were totally innocent and the number is far higher now years later. THIS ALONE IS REASON ENOUGH TO ABOLISH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT but the sadistic and depraved Far Right scream “Losses can never be too high” because we love the sexual excitement of executions!! What sick depraved people they truly are.
Yes most educated Americans are ashamed to be Americans because of state sponsored murder.
Do you support abortion, you sick twisted hypocrite?
When our government lets violent criminals off the hook with little to no punishment, and those violent criminals commit murder, then what is that called if not state sponsored murder? The same could be said for state and local governments that “defund” and / or restrain law enforcement from doing their duty. For the record, I’m against capital punishment for multiple reasons.
herr dacian the nazi. Still waiting for your citation about Texas executing a 6 yo for stealing bread as you claimed.
Are any of your claims valid?
Democrats got us involved in all of our major wars, none of which made any lasting difference, and which resulted in the deaths of over 1,000,000 Americans. RINO Wars have killed about 12,000 and GOP wars even less.
And dacian the stupid continues to bleat. Like all stupid sheep.
dacian, in what world do you think any of us gives even the slightest s*** about your idiot, Leftist/fascist, ignorant, ahistorical opinion??? Why do you burden us with YOUR psychological problems??? Just toddle off and join your daily circle jerk, since you are too stupid to insult.
I feel the same way about gun control. Gun control is not stopping murders at all. It’s a total waste of time, tax payer money, and human resources.
Firstly – I feel the same way about gun control. Someday, after science finds a cure to prevent people from committing murder, people will look back in horror and think, we put these people in the cage for 10 years, because they possessed a gun. They didn’t even hurt anyone, they just possessed a gun that we made illegal. That’s all. Horrific.
Second, if the right were murdering witches, what is the left? Witches? So I don’t see any witches dying today, by anyone on the right or left. Seems silly to try to equivocate witch burners back then, to gun rights advocates fighting for freedom today. It’s just ridiculous and juvenile.
What do you mean closure? The family of the victims know what happened. The perpetrator knows what happened. The court is not for “closure.” It is for justice. And justice is a blindfolded woman, bearing a scale and, yes, a sword. And sometimes, the swords strikes people down.
Uh! That got weird quick. Awkward. This kind of reveals more about you to us, than a declaration of what we really are.
Well most dead bodies are caused by the far left. If you add up the body count of Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, et al, the numbers of Mussolini and Hitler are tiny fractions shadowed by the far left.
No. Per capita, white people are committing less crimes and thus are avoiding the death penalty. You played the race card and now look like a fool. Any other comments you would like to use to prop up black people as a mascot or a trophy?
I don’t know if this is projection or psychosis. But it’s gross. Get help.
Sounds made up – like the rest of your post.
To anonymous
quote———————Well most dead bodies are caused by the far left. If you add up the body count of Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, et al, the numbers of Mussolini and Hitler are tiny fractions shadowed by the far left.————–quote
You flunked History Classes, Hitler alone, not counting Mussolini, murdered well over 6 million people in his concentration camps. Hitler caused the deaths of 20 million Russian soldiers not counting the Russian civilians he killed. And Hitler caused the death of thousands of Allied Soldiers and European civilians.
And Mao did not start WWII in Asia the Far Right Japanese did. Stalin did not start WWII rather it was the far right German Nazi’s that did. And it was the far right Mussolini that invaded Ethiopia. And Paul Pot did not start a war with anyone rather he murdered his own people.
dacian the stupid,
Do you ever bother to actually pay attention to the nonsense you propound? (Nah, I didn’t think so)???
“Hitler alone, not counting Mussolini, murdered well over 6 million people in his concentration camps. Hitler caused the deaths of 20 million Russian soldiers not counting the Russian civilians he killed. And Hitler caused the death of thousands of Allied Soldiers and European civilians.”
First of all, you complete dumbass, Hitler was a total Leftist, as anyone who EVER read any actual history can tell you. He is actually a pretty solid analogue for . . . you and your idiot friend MinorIQ.
Second, Hitler’s numbers PALE in comparison to your hero, Joe Stalin, and he ain’t even within shouting distance of your DEAR Chairman Mao. Pol Pot, Fidel/Che, Maduro haven’t even gotten on the scoreboard yet (although, to be fair, they didn’t have as many peasants around to casually murder).
The “West” has committed its share of heinous crimes against humanity, but we are pikers when it comes to true atrocities. As your hero Joe Stalin said, “One death is a tragedy; a million deaths are a statistic.” Leftist/fascists ARE the best mass murderers in history. But, then, to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs, amirite???
STFU, dacian the stupid, NO ONE cares what your latest pathetic attempt at an argument is.
Go read a book, dacian.
Here you go, straight from a LEFTIST source:
HOW MANY DIED? NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS FAR HIGHER NUMBERS FOR THE VICTIMS OF MAO ZEDONG’S ERA
While it is hardly any comfort to their victims, the two people most associated with mass deaths in this bloodiest of human centuries — Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin — were likely surpassed by a third, China’s Mao Zedong.
Mao launched more than a dozen campaigns during his rule, which began when he founded Communist China in 1949 and ended with his death in 1976. Some are well known while others, such as a bloody campaign to “purify class ranks” in the late 1960s, which involved army units, have received little publicity.
While most scholars are reluctant to estimate a total number of “unnatural deaths” in China under Mao, evidence shows he was in some way responsible for at least 40 million deaths and perhaps 80 million or more. This includes deaths he was directly responsible for and deaths resulting from disastrous policies he refused to change.
One government document that has been internally circulated and seen by a former Communist Party official now at Princeton University says that 80 million died unnatural deaths — most of them in the famine following the Great Leap Forward. This figure comes from the Tigaisuo, or the System Reform Institute, which was led by Zhao Ziyang, the deposed Communist Party chief, in the 1980s to study how to reform Chinese society.
In comparison, Hitler is blamed for 12 million concentration camp deaths and at least 30 million other deaths associated with World War II, while Stalin is believed responsible for between 30 million and 40 million “unnatural deaths,” including millions from a famine he created.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/07/17/how-many-died-new-evidence-suggests-far-higher-numbers-for-the-victims-of-mao-zedongs-era/01044df5-03dd-49f4-a453-a033c5287bce/
Lamp,
Don’t bother.
Dacian has a “Great Reset” to get to. Or was it called the “Great Leap Forward?” One of those.
Looks like you guys were right. It wasn’t right wingers. It was leftist commies.
Mao killed the most, and he did so, mostly, during peacetime. You were going to follow Mao’s ideology and do what needed doing, or you were gonna die. That’s how all leftists work. Even gun controllers if they could get away with it.
https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/the-legacy-mao-zedong-mass-murder
https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/the-legacy-mao-zedong-mass-murder
Quote———-Can you name the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century? No, it wasn’t Hitler or Stalin. It was Mao Zedong.
According to the authoritative “Black Book of Communism,” an estimated 65 million Chinese died as a result of Mao’s repeated, merciless attempts to create a new “social**t” China. ———-Quote
Yay! Social**m! (Say it slow in a russian or chinese accent)
dacian, the Dunderhead. Let me ask you, How can your studies determine that the death penalty is no deterrence to murder? Do you know of any executed murderer who ever came back to do it again?
Anyone who commits murder deserves nothing less than execution. Your cronies in the old Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as well as Fascist Italy did not bother with such niceties as a fair trial as we do here in the US.
So far there have been no “mistakes” and “murder” of someone who was/is innocent. I defy you to show just one that was “murdered” after a fair trial beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard by which we conduct our trials.
To Walter the Beverly Hillbilly
quote—————So far there have been no “mistakes” and “murder” of someone who was/is innocent. I defy you to show just one that was “murdered” after a fair trial beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard by which we conduct our trials.—————-quote
Have a 6th grader explain my above post to you. DNA evidence as well as later court records proved over 250 innocent people were falsely convicted and executed for murder and these are decades old findings not the other people who have been wrongly executed since those studies. Quit ignoring the facts with your ignorant and sick sadistic wave of your hand by saying “Don’t confuse me with the facts I cannot stand to admit my ignorance”.
So, if they “proved” that, dacian the stupid, you should be able to provide an EASY link to this “proof”, right????
STFU, dacian. I am relatively certain there have been mistakes made (after all, it IS your vaunted “government” – the most inept, incompetent group of drooling idiots on the planet), but your charge of “proof” is worthy of calling out.
Cite a CREDIBLE source, or STFU.
Why are you still here??? We laugh at you, we despise you, we mock you . . . and you keep coming back. Psychiatrists have a word for that, ya know. Marquis de Sade says “hi”.
dacian the stupid Sacher-Masoch does have a certain ring to it, though, dunnit???
The cable calls for your gentle ministrations . . . go micturate upwards upon it.
dacian, the Dunderhead, 250cases? Cite just one! DNA is a great way to prove very little. It’s only a little better than eye witness testimony which according to valid studies is often wrong.
Lamp, dician the Dunderhead could not find a fart in a telephone booth with a “fart detector”
to Walter the Beverly Hillbilly
quote——–dacian, the Dunderhead, 250cases? Cite just one! DNA is a great way to prove very little. It’s only a little better than eye witness testimony which according to valid studies is often wrong.—————–quote
Studies have shown that DNA evidence is 99% accurate, making it one of the most foolproof pieces of evidence you can possibly use in court. Like fingerprints, no two people have the same DNA. If a mistake occurs, it’s typically because of human error.
https://www.shevinlaw.com/blog/2021/01/how-accurate-is-dna-evidence/
JUST SINCE 1973 NOT I REPEAT NOT PRIOR TO 1973 THE U.S. HAS WRONGLY EXECUTED 186 PEOPLE.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence
I think these last bizarre posts by The Lamp and Walter show how arrogant and deranged and totally ignorant these cretins really are.
dacian, the Dunderhead. ROFLMAOBT! Let me give you an education on DNA. DNA only shows that the person identified was present at one time or another. It does not give time or date? As it is possible to exclude the identification, it does not mean that the person accused especially in a murder was not there.
Deathpealtyinfo.org is hardly a reputable source. Calling them biased would be a gross understatement.
nice…
what took them so long
because in an america
where the united states federal government
forces the states to allow the killing of innocent babies for convenience
– and for profit –
im all for the execution of convicted murderers
every
day
of
the
week
I find it very interesting to read *which* commenters here on TTAG are on one side of the issue or the other. It wasn’t what I had expected to find.
I’m also “against” the death penalty.
Not because I’m a bleeding heart liberal with green hair and a pink p**** hat, but because as must as I’d like potential justice to be harsh for crimes committed against my family, I’m of the opinion, government sucks. They suck. They are all incompetent, and there is never any accountability, ever. So I’m split on which to support, and end up erring on the side that deprives the government of LESS control and power.
Let’s split the difference.
Death penalty for government workers. There, now everyone’s dissatisfied but at least no one has to sit at the DMV all day.
strych9,
A question (NOT a disagreement!!): does “government workers” include politicians?? If so, count me as an enthusiastic supporter!! Death penalty, hell, I’m thinkin’ we need substantial bounties. “I just shot me an eight-term Congressman!! When my bounty check comes in, I’m buyin’ a new rifle!”.
does “government workers” include politicians??
Good sir, they are the primary target! Simple office drones may find redemption but politicians long ago sold their souls.
Obviously, the most guilty are first in line. Which puts the folks at the ATF and the IRS as second in line.
strych9, Whether or not a politician “has sold their soul” is a question that has little or no bearing on the issue. A politician is a representative of the people. If he betrays that obligation he is subject to the laws governing such conduct, but that does not justify making a politician a “target” does it?
Haz,
A couple of observations:
1. Anyone who DOESN’T take the killing of another human to be a serious issue, deserving of the greatest POSSIBLE amount of care, is not someone I’d care to be around.
2. If your thoughts about abortion/death penalty, etc. don’t evolve over time, I would suggest that they aren’t actually “thoughts”. Mine certainly have.
3. I have exactly zero problem with giving a “taxpayer relief shot” to a goblin who is threatening me or mine. I assume the legal, moral, and ethical responsibility for that decision.
4. I don’t trust “the government” to do f*** all. As my dear daddy used to say, “The government can f*** up a one car parade!!”. If they are doing it “in my name”, I don’t trust them to kill cockroaches.
5. God tells me “Judge not, lest ye be judged”. If I don’t claim they right to kill another human (EXCEPT in an “in extremis” situation), why and HOW can I delegate that right to the government??
A great ethical question to ask someone (to get their view on ‘government’) is: “When, if ever, is it ethical for the government to do something that would not be ethical for an individual to do?” I can imagine the kind of idiot “answers” we could expect from dacian the stupid and MinorIQ.
Ok, ladies. Which caliber?
May I suggest 1,000 rounds of 22lr?
No choice of putting a cretin to death in ILLannoy. Convicted felon Governor George Ryan got rid it. Even for demons like Fidel Caffee(look it up). And there is no certainty of justice in Chiraq. I believe the death penalty should be rare but available…
44mag between the eyes.
Difficulties in getting drugs for lethal injections?? Bollocks! You can but POTASSIUM CYANIDE COMPOUNDS on the net by the kilo.
Gas chamber? No probs! Lower them into a CO2 chamber. No choking and death in two seconds max. Just go to a PIG or POULTRY abbatoir if you do not believe me.
The Firing Squad is about a Public Spectacle and revenge. KNow what the going price of being a member of a firing squad is -and tgis has been tested by polling?? $US 250,000. If you asked for volunteers from the American public you’d be killed in the rush
If there was any deterent effect in nthe daethg penaly maybe it would have some justification but there is not. The American death penalty is all about REVENGE not deterence.
Little Bobby Hall comments, “If there was any deterent effect in nthe daethg penaly maybe it would have some justification but there is not. ”
How wonderful that Bobby has learned his idiot talking points!
However, the death penalty is a deterrent. When death is swift and assured, people don’t commit the crime. People don’t jump off of 1000 foot cliffs routinely, because they know they will die. People don’t run into the freeway to play chicken with 180 wheelers, because they know they will die. People don’t routinely use their fingers to short out 1000 volt electric lines, because they know they will die.
The death penalty is not a very EFFECTIVE deterrent, precisely because it is administered arbitrarily, capriciously, and not very often.
If gang bangers KNEW that they would have a swift trial and be executed for murder within a month, they would find some other kind of life.
As is, the gang banger may or may not be caught. He may or may not be convicted. He may or may not be sentenced to death. He may or may not get a pardon. He may or may not get a commutation. He may or may not with an appeal on a technicality. He may or may not live long enough to see the end of his appeals. He may also escape prison before being executed.
There is far too much left up to chance, and to his lawyer’s bargaining skills.
But, if the gang banger were stripped of all those opportunities to cheat the system – if he KNEW that he would be executed within a month of commiting the crime, he would almost never commit the crime.
If you believe any differently, then you are stupider than anyone here suspected.
Very well said. This becomes more obvious when they (like Dacian above) misapply history, claiming that since crime rates weren’t amazingly low during the broadest application of the death penalty, this “proves” it wasn’t a deterrent.
The amazing truth is that they were roughly similar, despite the absence of almost everything else in today’s crime-prevention toolbox. As you explained, everybody takes the probability as well as the severity of consequences into account when making risk decisions. In an era with negligible mechanisms to surveil, prevent, communicate, track, arrest, or convict criminals, severity of (very unlikely) consequences alone was enough to keep crime moderate – along with a moral sense reinforced by those consequences.
Actually, most people operate under the assumption that they won’t get caught in the first place. Sometimes this is because they’ve thought about it but most often because they have not.
Those that do, the truly hardened ones, don’t care about dying anyway. Albert Pierrepoint, the famous British hangman, noted this. It was his personal belief after talking to and executing between 400 and 550 people with the rope, that the death penalty was of no value since the vast majority of people put to death didn’t care about being executed anyway.
The people that did the crime “in the heat of passion”, when executed, also show a remarkable lack of caring about their fate.
His observations would seem to be borne out by study decades later. The US Government has funded such studies for decades and there’s a book on the topic from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine which is a meta-analysis on the topic published, IIRC, in 2012. Deterrence and the Death Penalty found no deterrent effect of the death penalty with regards to murder, which obviously is what matters since we don’t execute people for practically any other crimes.
The reasons, they reckoned, were that the actual risk to the would-be murderer are actually incalculable from the would-be murder’s position.
So what does matter in this calculation? It seems that the risk of immediate death and injury do. Which is to say that when would-be murders look at a would-be victim they calculate the risk of that person being armed and capable of fighting back a hell of a lot more than they do the chances they get caught and later executed.
If you want to drop the murder rate, it seems, the answer isn’t more state sanctioned murder. It’s legal self-defense. Guns are good for that, which is why we’re all here.
Actually, the death penalty is about punishment fitting the crime. As far as deterrence, it will deter a minimum of one person, the one being put to death.
If executions were in public like they were years ago, the deterrence factor would increase dramatically.
Well, Albert the Subject, imagine my surprise that a subject idiot such as yourself would be so ignorant!!!
Just FYI, you “subject” idiot troll, the SCOTUS has ruled that we cannot have an execution that involved inflicting “undue pain”. Equally, we have had Federal courts ruling that cyanide poisoning by gasifying cyanide is “cruel and unusual punishment”.
I don’t much care how a scumbag goes to meet his/her/its maker. I don’t like government having ANY power over life and death, because I know how incompetent (and vindictive) they are.
Sorry, not willing to engage you further, as I find discussions with monarchist/fascist, Leftist/fascist trolls boring AF. Toddle off, have your afternoon tea, go ask the Queen is she still loves you, and go die in a hole. No one on this side of the pond gives even a shart.
Hard to get the medications needed to kill?
Umm
At slaughter houses and animal euthanasia centers they seem to have that worked out.
Painless execution is done on the luckier animals by inert gas poisoning. The animal blacks out then succumbs.
Much less nice for beef etc I won’t spell it out.
The drugs are usually prescribed by law and the companies that make them have started to refuse to sell them to states that are using them for the death penalty.
For example, Potassium chloride (KCl) is a “drug” (really just an ionic solution made to a specific concentration) manufactured for legitimate medical uses in people who are severely dehydrated and/or have a potassium imbalance. The manufacturers don’t want it used for intentional OD for the purpose of inducing of a heart attack, and so they won’t sell it to a State that uses it for such.
(And if you’ve ever had this stuff injected into you it does hurt like a mother, ask me how I know.)
Now, the State could lie about the intended use, but that’s defrauding on the company and that’s a bad look for the people blathering about law and order being the reason behind all of this talk in the first place, eh?
You can go down the list of drugs used for a lethal injection and they all have legit medical uses. As such, it’s up to manufacturers and distributors to decide if they wish to sell the product to an entity they know is using it quite specifically to kill people.
The same thing has happened when States tried to buy from compounding pharmacies. Some didn’t want to take part in the job. In some cases basically no one wants to take part in this and so the state cannot source the drug(s).
And you can kinda see why when you read about how executions using lethal injection work. Something like Fatal-Plus (Pentobarbital sodium) used in animal euthanasia knocks the animal out cold in under two seconds. So, how are these people getting a lethal injection sometimes doped up but conscious/talking for a fair period of time? Because the executioners are not as competent as a common veterinarian.
That kind of incompetence combined with a political hot-button issue gives some companies second thoughts about getting involved, and since the law says what procedures are legally acceptable the state’s up the creek until they change the legally allowable methods.
I’ll go out on a limb and assume you know because you were severely dehydrated and/or had a potassium imbalance.
Once I was low on potassium due to a drug I took for an injury – weak, cramps, etc. The pharmacist was going to sell me tiny potassium pills for like $5 a tiny pill. So I bought “No-Salt” at the grocery store – same thing at a fraction of the cost.
I believe the term for my former predicament is known as “death’s doorstep” and there’s some debate as to whether or not I technically alive through the whole thing or died and was brought back. I can’t really comment, I wasn’t conscious during the whole not having a heartbeat thing.
Generally, I prefer to think of myself as a zombie just because it’s fun to troll people by saying it.
IV potassium is not something you want if you can avoid it. If you can’t avoid it then you want it because there’s no other way to avoid dying. Pills will not get this done once your ionic balance is off enough. You need a measured mix of sodium and potassium because those are the primary drivers of your nervous system via co-transport and anti-transport.
If that system gets out of balance enough you’re fucked without very, very, very serious intervention. Like several days of IV bags followed by several days of Rx only supplements. About a week in the hospital in my case.
It burns like a mother and feels like you have an elephant on your chest. And that’s when the people doing it are going out of their way to help you.
Not even an issue. The condemned has to die, he dies, it should be as simple as that. The prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment” would rule out being tortured to death. It would rule out being staked over an ant hill for however long it takes. It would rule out most medical experiments, unless the condemned actually volunteered for medical science. That leaves multiple methods of execution that aren’t “cruel and unusual”. Slit his throat, shoot him, electric chair, a hammer to the head like they do beef. The purpose is not to make the condemned to suffer, but to end his life. I really don’t give the smallest rat’s arse how he dies. I really don’t care if he happens to suffer for some seconds, or even a minute or two. Just get the job done, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Don’t intentionally drag it out, just to cause suffering, but if he suffers, big deal.
People suffer in hospitals every day, every night, the world around. It’s a fact of life: exiting life is not pleasant.
The same people who act concerned about a convicted killer possibly suffering during an execution are the same ones who don’t give a crap about how much suffering the murderer has caused for other people.
Or how much suffering a “fetus” experiences being torn apart and suctioned out of the womb. “Progressives” believe what is convenient for them to believe at that particular point in time.
Paul – “I really don’t care if he happens to suffer for some seconds, or even a minute or two. Just get the job done, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Don’t intentionally drag it out, just to cause suffering, but if he suffers, big deal.”
GREAT! I say tie ’em to a whipping post, standing position. facing the single gunman armed with a S&W AR22, ammo ONLY hot enough to ensure correct function of arm.
Start at groin, creep upwards in 1/2″ increments, one shot per minute, 15 minute break on each empty politically correct 10 round magazine, until death is achieved.
Life in a cage.
Give me liberty or give me death.
Totally possum, with 100% conviction (no pun intended, sorta). And/but for many of those criminal asswipes a life sentence is time spent with friends and family. I’d have to be unconscious or stone cold dead before I ever let someone push me face first in the gravel, knee in my back and cuff my hands behind me. Ain’t gonna happen.
Public hanging for capital crimes.
First class trial followed by a first class appeal. Done and over within 60 days if guilty.
Start cleaning out the prisons of the violent offenders, Harvey Weinsteins and Bernie Madoff types.
A firing squad can be a humane method of execution but the bullets should be light and fast to maximize disruption of soft tissue and the target should be the brain, not the heart, to cause instantaneous loss of consciousness.
There remains one legitimate objection to execution. It is the risk of executing an innocent person who was wrongfully convicted. It’s possible to release such a person, even after decades in prison (and compensate him handsomely, like $100k tax free for every year behind bars). It’s not possible to undo an execution.
What are the odds of putting to death someone who is actually innocent, versus how many innocents would be killed by someone who could eventually get out of prison and kill again?
Even if someone is given life without parole, with all the brainless libtards that could attain a governorship, there is always the possibility of them being released.
The anti-death penalty crowd will always make exceptions for people like Kyle Rittenhouse. Or Joe horn.
False dichotomy much?
So, . . . apparently, we’re missing both the “dichotomy” and, particularly, the “false”.
Perhaps you can enlighten us, nameless, brainless, d***less troll.
Nah, but it was fun embarrassing you by asking.
You got it, chief. Chris T claims that you can’t be both a 2nd Amendment supporter and opposed to the death penalty. That’s the dichotomy. I, and many others on this thread, do have those beliefs and have explained why. That’s the false part.
Nice ad hominem attack though.
Where did he say that? Placing his comment in the context of his others, he was writing about leftists (who oppose the death penalty for actual criminals) calling for the death or even torture of perceived “right wing extremists” who kill in self defense – a fact borne out by countless public verbal and written (Twitter, etc.) statements, and previously reported here on TTAG.
In his comments above: “Chris T in KY March 21, 2022 At 12:11
The problem with the anti-death penalty crowd is that they are also supporters of a big intrusive government. In fact the people who speak about being anti-death penalty are also very much Anti Second Amendment. It is why I have never trusted them.”
Thanks. I hadn’t seen the previous statement, and your response to his last statement made no sense to me. Nevertheless, both his statements are overwhelmingly correct about the party generally associated with both those positions.
That’s definitely fair.
👍🍻
NumbAbovetheNeck,
“The anti-death penalty crowd will always make exceptions for people like Kyle Rittenhouse. Or Joe horn.”
Please, elucidate EXACTLY where, in that comment, ChrisT said ANY of what you allege? Oh, that’s right, he didn’t. “But he made other comments” is a half-assed attempt at an excuse – unless he said those EXACT words, you are interpreting comments he made in another context to mean what you want them to mean. In the “Rhetoric and Debate” world, that is commonly known as “pulling your argument out of your @$$”. And NO, you t***, my response was not ad hominem, it was a legitimate response to your half-@$$ed attempt to create an argument by misrepresenting what ChrisT said.
Believe me, I’ve had plenty of disagreements with ChrisT. But, unlike you, I actually try to respond to what he actually said, not what I wished he said to suit my “argument”.
But, thanks for playing. Go join MinorIQ, dacian the stupid and the nameless, brainless troll.
Just what is a non-lethal bullet?
As far as lethal drug availability, what’s wrong with just giving them cyanide? It’s readily available, probably cheaper as well.
Exactly what it sounds like. The whole point of execution by firing squad, as opposed to ballistic execution by a single person, is to reduce the psychological stress on those carrying out the sentence.
If one person puts a pistol to the head of a convict and pulls the trigger, there is zero doubt in their own mind that the executioner killed someone in cold blood which, even if legally and morally sanctioned, isn’t the easiest thing for the vast majority of people to deal with. On the other hand, if five people simultaneously fire weapons at a convict, there’s really no telling who actually fired the fatal shot and that goes double if some unknown percentage of the weapons used are loaded with non-lethal ammo
If someone is firing a round that is not a real bullet, then they are surely going to know it based on the kick that the firearm has or doesn’t have, so that aspect seems rather pointless.
When you need inventive ways to cover up whodunit and “defray the guilt” it’s a pretty good sign that you’re doing things you shouldn’t be.
Just sayin’.
Salient point. Much as I’d like to see some people hang I do not believe I have the authority to make that call, nor a jury of my peers. As for the gov: ‘they’ already exercise FAR too much power over us peasants.
That’s why we have a jury of 12.
Getting more people to participate has no bearing on the morality of the act. To say otherwise flat-out Leftist thinking, it’s exactly the notion of “collective rights”.
You can assuage guilt about an immoral act through defrayal of guilt but not change the nature of the act itself.
“The South Carolina Department of Corrections spent about $53,600 to establish a firing squad and renovate its execution facility, ”
That’s probably less than one lethal injection execution, so good use of taxpayer funds.
I love SC (except the weather), but I’m not exactly comfortable with the state/compromised jury deciding who lives and who dies in this political climate.
God prescribed the death penalty in the Bible. If there are two or more credible witnesses to a murder there should be no doubt as to guilt and the punishment should be meted out quickly after a trial. If there are no witnesses or other irrefutable proof of the crime then I’m ok with a life sentence. To check overzealous prosecutors who lie, cheat and steal to get a conviction I propose that they suffer the maximum penalty that their unjust conviction of an innocent person would merit. And that condition would remain as long as the prosecutor is alive. And maybe they would forfeit all of their belongings to the person they unjustly convicted. And this would also include officers that fabricate or exclude exculpatory evidence.
As a side note, the Lord Jesus Christ was wrongly accused, convicted and executed. I am profoundly saddened that my sin caused that event to happen. Yet at the same time, I am profoundly gladdened that his death saves me from eternal punishment that is worse than death to eternal joy for all of eternity.
You Sir, sound like an actual (Biblical) Christian…
Wish I could volunteer.
With the level of forensic sciences and the availability of video surveillance and cell phones, it is getting harder to either mistake an individual, or railroad someone for a crime they didn’t commit.
As a personal opinion and belief, I have no problem with execution of those convicted of intentional murder or of murder as a result of another violent crime. Such as an armed home invasion, rape, armed robbery, or any and all rapists or child molesters.
Find someone guilty of the above crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. With DNA and or video evidence, allow a single appeal through an independent judge, or other separate authority, then follow through with the execution within 30 days. So long as the method used is not prolonged or torturous, I don’t care. A single large caliber pistol round to the back of the head, gas, injection, headsman’s ax, firing squad, whatever. Just get on with it and remove such human detritus from the gene pool.
And, yes, the death penalty is both a deterrent and revenge. The criminal will never commit another act of violence, and pays back society for the life he/she stole by firfieting his/hers.
“With the level of forensic sciences and the availability of video surveillance and cell phones, it is getting harder to either mistake an individual, or railroad someone for a crime they didn’t commit.”
LOL, high schools across the nation don’t even teach cursive anymore and you think these people are going to understand the physics of light, pixels, software coding, Fourier space/transform etc etc etc?
No, sir. It’s become easier to manufacture “evidence”, not harder. And that evidence can be made as compelling as need be.
Go watch the TwoMinutePapers YT channel on “deep faking” video and tell me that this shit won’t fool 99.99% of juries. No public defender can afford the specialists it takes to prove it’s fake either. And such videos can be made with current software in minutes.
I once shocked a friend with my description of my ecological execution method for child sex murderers – “bib and a hammer”.
The parents each get a spatter bib and a hammer and the convict gets to ask for mercy.
The hammering stops when the parents feel better.
“Cook County (Chicago), Illinois wrongfully convicted and condemned 15 death-row exonerees since 1973, more than double the number of any other county in the United States. It is followed by Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio; and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, with six exonerations each. Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona; and Oklahoma County (Oklahoma City), Oklahoma had five each. By themselves, these five counties account for 37 death-row exonerations, one fifth of the nation’s total. And more than 95 percent of the wrongful capital convictions and death sentences in these counties involved some combination of police or prosecutorial misconduct and/or witness perjury or false accusation.
A new examination of exonerations involving DNA evidence suggests that many more innocence cases remain undetected because DNA evidence was unavailable or courts refused to permit testing. Because the presence or absence of DNA evidence in a case should have no effect on what factors cause a wrongful capital conviction, large differences between the causes of wrongful convictions in the DNA cases and in the cases with no DNA are red flags of where courts may have unjustly denied or erroneously credited false evidence that could have been disproven by DNA. In particular, misconduct, false or fabricated confessions, and questionable forensic or witness testimony were proven to be present much more frequently in the cases involving DNA evidence.“
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/dpic-adds-eleven-cases-to-innocence-list-bringing-national-death-row-exoneration-total-to-185
I dunno, MinorIQ, I’m just spitballin’, here, but . . . didn’t the word “exoneration” appear in that citation, rather frequently?????
I don’t wish to “delegate” my authority to execute a scumbag to YOUR exalted “government”, but I also haven’t seen the EVIDENCE that the government has actually executed innocent people. I don’t claim the right to judge, but . . . most criminals who get as far as trial for capital murder?? Pretty much have a long history of heinous s***, probably INCLUDING murder.
We need a better system, but I’m not trusting idiots like you to come up with it. We’ll figure it out, MajorStupidity, just don’t jog our elbows while we’re trying to work. Toddle on back to your circle jerk, and STFU.
GRANDFATHER TOLD ME SOME PEOPLE NEED KILLN , NOW I UNDERSTAND , SPARKY , ROPE HANGN , FIRE SQUAD , JUST GET IT DONE .
FOR ONE STOP TURNING CHILD KILLERS LOSE .
Some people definitely need killing. Buuuuuuuuuuut, the government is going to f*** it up. There will be corruption. There will be Epsteins. Their will be no accountability. They will f*** it up. So as much as I’d like some murderers to just be ended, maybe it’s better they are not. Because you or me might be in that situation – a victim of government incompetence, with no accountability or oversight, facing a firing squad, Mao style.
There are those who earn the distinction that they should die for their actions. I also do not trust the ethics of a Government that does little to allow people to protect themselves or have a truly fair trial. Some prosecutors will what they can to get the conviction, regardless of the evidence and the truth. They are evaluated at election time for how many convictions they achieved. Defense Attorneys are often disinterested because the client can’t afford better or rely on a Public Defender who does not have the time to present a good case or pursue evidence.
There are cases where it is clear the individual did in fact commit a heinous crime. Some even brag about it for their 15 minutes of fame or infamy. These cases the death penalty should be carried out quickly and with public fanfare. The method should be decided by the crime itself. I understand the concept of restricting cruel and unusual punishment. However some crimes are so heinous that no punishment in comparison can be more cruel or unusual than the crime.
I am conflicted on capital punishment. I see it as moral and it stops reoffending. But to execute 1 innocent out of 99 guilty is too high of a price. I also know the victims of some of these criminals are scarred for life and fear that the offender may return. They have no peace because of the offender. At least a dead offender will not come back.
If someone is firing a round that is not a real bullet, then they are surely going to know it based on the kick that the firearm has or doesn’t have, so that aspect seems rather pointless.
I’m laughing my arse off because almost without exception, the commenters on this thread have made a mockery of dacian the stupid and MinorIQ by . . . not trusting the government to try and execute someone.
Further proof (not that any was needed) that the Leftist/fascists are the most irrational, narrow-minded people on earth. They “hate” us, and . . . they have absolutely no idea who we are, what we think, or why, and no idea that “we” are FAR from a monolith. It would be funny, if it weren’t so pathetic.
Turning an immoral act into a $53,600 grift of tax money and still managing to get some decent level of public support is something only a government can do.
Walk into your average bar at 11pm on a Friday or Saturday night and then realize that you can drop the average IQ in the joint by 20 points and you’ll get the average IQ of a government agency on Wednesday afternoon. Drop the bar’s average IQ by 35 points and you’ll get the high point of any given election cycle for a legislature.
Add in a good dose of corruption and a dash just plain nasty and you’ll get the average for a room full of lawyers.
I’m not real interested in supporting any of that shit, especially after the last couple of years.
And at this point I doubt we will ever be rid of them. Even the good guys are only waiting their turn to be the bad guys.
just get some inert gas and pump it into a small room (or bag around the condemned person’s head).
quicker than lethal injection, painless, easy to source, still works fine. Not sure why this isn’t done yet.
bonus: no need to waste ammo on criminals that could be used at the range
If you want simple, teach a family member of the victim to do a proper RNC and have them off the bad guy by a form of manual strangulation. Over in 20 seconds, completely painless and the family gets what the pols tell us the family wants.
No one wants to do that because most family members won’t actually go through with it.
This is an “all power and glory to the state” model of doing things. I’m not entirely sure why we tolerate it other than that a huge percentage of “law abiding citizens” are just as mentally screwed up and propagandized as the people they want to see get offed by the state.
If you can honestly look at the past two years and say that the government should have the legal ability to kill people it’s already captured and locked in a cage, IMHO, you’re off your rocker. Governments at every level and in nearly every state have spent the last two years proving to you that they cannot be trusted about anything.
And in the states where they haven’t screwed the pooch they’re not exactly speaking truth to power either, meaning they cannot be trusted to do the right thing when the rubber meets the road.
I understand that some are morally or politically opposed to the death penalty for noble reasons. Both have validity. You either believe that life is sacred or that the state should not be allowed to kill its citizens.
I agree. However, you don’t offer any real middle ground for compromise. There are some people who kill others. What would you have us do with them? Keep in mind that a life sentence means nothing to the family of the victims. They have to pay the emotional price of continually opposing parole. Then, we have to bear the cost of health care for octogenarian inmates. “Poor Mr. Johnson has renal disease and poses no threat to anyone. Surely, the Governor should grant him clemency so he can spend his last Christmas with his family?”
No. You don’t want the death penalty. What are offering us? And completely take off the table those wrongly convicted. I am talking about the ones caught on video shooting the gas station clerk who had already handed over everything in the register. What are you going to do with them?
It cannot be some federal prison, art camp, free range experience. They killed someone. Now what?
There can’t really be middle ground in a truly binary decision, which inflicting death on someone is. They’re either alive or not. You either killed them or you didn’t. There’s no “oh, well we half-way killed them” position.
Those who point out the immoral nature of a state killing members its own population are under no obligation to provide an alternative. They’ve already done the job of pointing out the immoral nature of an act.
That leaves the people engaged in the act with a binary choice. Continue acting or stop. What they do after they stop is another conversation that has nothing to do with the morality of the action under discussion.
Which is not to say that you don’t bring up a valid point but to point out that what you bring up is an entirely separate conversation about an entirely different topic. That doesn’t make in invalid, it just makes it different.
Conflating the two topics via whataboutism is one of the root causes of the initial argument.
Part of the solution is also looking at the nuance of the individual case. A guy who flew off the handle a beat some choMo to death because he caught the pedo in the act is a bit different than someone who plans out an assassination for money, no? Yet, “They killed someone. Now what?” doesn’t really cover the differences, does it?
We could probably sit down and have a good conversation about this.
My point is that we live in the US. If we accept that government should represent voters and be limited by voters, then it is prone to allow majority rule. You can’t have a majority if you are unwilling to build a consensus. I believe that death is the appropriate punishment for murder. If you want me to accept that the death penalty is to no longer be used, then you have to offer me (those who are like-minded) something that will build consensus.
We have to have a clear plan for punishment. We don’t. Should prison be a reforming institution or punishing experience?
If a group wants to abolish the death penalty, then they are going to have to win over some portion of the voters who believe that convicted criminals deserve punishment. What are they offering?
Sid, here is a fact for you. Prison is not designed to “reform” anyone. Reformation is only possible if the person wants to be reformed. Today we offer all kinds of programs which are supposed to assist the convict in that reformation. But if the convict doesn’t want to reform all the programs in the world will not do a damn bit of good.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all in favor of these programs. It keeps the inmate somewhat occupied. As idleness is the devil’s workshop…
Walter,
The point being that our current prison system is stuck going in too many directions. Are we punishing them? Are we trying to make them safer to return to society?
Sid We are doing both. I favor the programs as they keep the convicts busy. If they did not have programs, they would be up to find ways to thwart the security of the prison.
In actuality, you can’t do a damn thing to make them “safer to return to society”. There is no “magic pill. It is up to them to accept the programs which are offered and apply them to their lives. Prison keep the convict confined to the prison until the judge or the parole board says they can go “home”. Other than offer the programs you cannot force the convict to accept what you are trying to teach them.
Just a technical comment; breathing a gas that lacks oxygen, for example breathing nitrogen gas, does not cause distress.
Suffocation causes distress. I experienced this and had thousands of related nightmares. As the carbon dioxide concentration increases in your body from air in your lungs becoming low in oxygen and higher in CO2, a sensor in your neck informs your body which turns on adrenaline and extends your time to function briefly in an anaerobic state while you experience maximum panic until you become unable to move then become unconscious. Breathing nitrogen or other gases low in CO2 and low in oxygen results in confusion then unconsciousness then death all without distress. This is why it’s so important to stay out of old unventilated spaces which can fill with such mixes. Somebody mentioned ship rooms where the anchor chains are that rust and suck up the oxygen. Freon leaks into spaces kill repair people every year.
“… breathing a gas that lacks oxygen, for example breathing nitrogen gas, does not cause distress.”
Betcha it does when someone slaps handcuffs on you and marches you to a chamber having told you what’s about to happen. Or would you consider it valid to argue that “spacing” someone doesn’t cause distress as you frogmarch them to an airlock?
I really don’t see how methodology makes this better. It can make it worse if you’re a sicko, but method doesn’t address root ethical/moral concerns at all.
If someone invents a new abortion method that’s shown to not “cause distress” for the unborn are Christians going to support that or oppose it less on moral grounds? Is it OK now, or “more” acceptable?
No, Christians are not going to support that. And they shouldn’t either. Agree with their position or not, it’s a firmly held philosophical position and they’re not going to give up that ground.
The ethics of capital punishment are complicated.
The technical stuff is factual.
My personal opinion is yup, some folks need killing. I met a few, or rather I was given a tour of a facility where they were housed. One client was a serial offender who once used a fire extinguisher to blow up the abdomen of a staff member then dragged his intestines out, alive. He was not the worst inmate. So, again, my personal opinion, I would not be worried about his stress levels while he was marched to a painless death.
BTW I also enjoyed the Netflix series “100” where they described “spacing” or vacuum death, which I would guess hurts about 10 seconds.
Then just to wind up the Christians, those Crusades had lots of killing didn’t they? (people keep bringing that up).
Abortion is, I feel, a separate debate. I have a friend who is so anti abortion if you ask her if she would be ok in strapping down a 13 year old girl pregnant from her own father to prevent her from getting an abortion – yup she would. That is dogma, not ethics.
Every time a pregnant woman sniffs glue or drinks alcohol she is killing a bit of her unborn. There are Christians who would deny such women birth control as “it is sin”. Ethics?? Or dogma?
“Spacing” results in a mild boiling sensation on the back of the tongue and unconsciousness within a couple of seconds, it causes blood oxygen to jump to the gas phase very, very, very fast and with enough energy that it breaks the hemoglobin bond holding the O2 in place. It’s happened to people in NASA testing and some of those people survived to tell the tale.
My point here is simply that for many people debating the technical issues of bad behavior isn’t really on the table since they start from the position of “That’s bad behavior, don’t do it in the first place”.
Realistically, for me personally, I’m not interested in a government having this power. Particularly not our government, which has shown an enormous propensity to lie, cheat and steal for a century.
You’re talking about a government that openly, openly says that it wants a Cent. Bank Digi Currency specifically for the control that gives them over the population. This administration is looking at China and saying “Hold my beer” on tyranny. Why would I want such a group of people to have the lawful ability to decide who lives and dies when they’ve shown a willingness to abuse, expand and then re-abuse every power they already have?
Of offer a lottery, to participate any caliber can be used! People would buy tickets to rid society of this trash!
“if you shall seek repentance, then you shall seek only what has been to you, an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth” . that means YOU , you know, the dead person that only has the right to kill someone back because they killed you. any thing else is murder and conspiracy to commit murder. IF a person is CONVICTED of murder, it does not always mean they did it. it might mean didn’t have money for a good lawyer, evidence that would have cleared you was not let into trial, or false witness and other things. and it has happened before. we here people today getting released because of new evidence or DNA proving someone didn’t do it. sitting in jail getting bent over and banged everyday by your new friend is not a good life.
I’ve heard it said that it’s not gay if you’re on top. Yes, while a murderer etc may indeed ‘deserve’ the death penalty and may indeed forfeit their own ‘right to life’ (if such a thing even truly exists: more that you simply possess the right to protect your life) it has always struck me that death penalties are only defensible by claiming fiscal reasoning or vengeful retaliation. That first defense is weak beer indeed and the second, while I could certainly see myself carrying out a vengeful killing, isn’t something a moral society can/should easily condone or justify. It rather seems that it must be left to the (now dead, as you state) victim to decide the sentencing or at least their immediate kin and that plants the carrying out of a death sentence squarely in the territory of vengeance. Given the above and as I stated elsewhere; I feel neither myself, a judge nor any jury is (properly) posessed of the authority to impose such a sentence, deserved as it may be and as you suggest, only the victim might properly make that call (so back to straight up vengeance). We can easily justify incarceration as a means to remove them from society but can we morally justify an act of killing that can seemingly only be justified by fiscal or vengeful reasoning? As much as I’d like to see them all fry and fry hard, I recognize exactly why I feel that way.
Riderless/ShootOff Canuck. Thank God you are in Canada and cannot vote in US elections,
The decision by a jury to execute a murdered is US law in a number of states, thank God! It is currently in accord with the US Supreme Court’s decisions regarding the Death Penalty.
The murder of a police officer, Correction officer or a public official is an attack not just against that person but against the very foundation of society. If you do not with to reserve the foundation of society, then you arse in effect espousing chaos.
Removal of the murderer from society may not be enough to ensure that that person does not murder again. I personally know of a man convicted of murder before going to prison did kill a female correction officer at Green Haven Correctional Facility, Stormville, NY. That conviction was upheld by the NYS Court of Appeals but overturned the death penalty which was delt at the end of the trial. The Judge who sat on bench at sentencing, said that this particular murdered deserved the death penalty. I agree with the Judge.
Spoke to an ex prison psychologist at length. She said a lot of guys are ordinary but screwed up a robbery like “hit him with the club on the head didn’t think he would die”, and that these are generally ok to go out. Then there were the perverts, she said these get better at not being caught and always re-offend. One explained “ I like sex with children”, very honest. Then the psychopaths who did whatever to whoever to get whatever they wanted, devoid of empathy, narcissistic disorder types. Those that got pleasure from hurting others would always reoffend. The most tragic group she identified were the fetal alcohol syndrome adults with low impulse control who were ok people except would act on impulse. Instead of just getting angry they might stab you. See an attractive person? Fondle them. Sorry after, etc. Always re-offend.
So basically she had very little hope for therapy, but had praise for skill / trades programs to give alternative employment to the first group, the crappy criminals who mess up their crime, or sell drugs cuz they are too lazy to get a real job. A whole bunch of the other categories she wanted dead.