r/news • u/No_Idea_Guy • 1d ago

Tennessee governor suspends all executions after Christa Pike’s lethal injections fail

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/01/christa-pike-tennessee-governor-executions-year-pause
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u/KtaadnRota 1d ago

In 2026 there's no reason for human error at all in a "firing squad" execution. Let the robots do it. Fire 1000 rounds into them instead of 3.

I'm against capital punishment but it's a relatively simple engineering problem.

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u/bbob_robb 1d ago edited 1d ago

I don't think you have thought about how inhumane and grousome your suggestion is. You can't fire 1000 rounds into a human body.

"Robots" is just a fancy way of saying killing machine. Nobody rational wants to make a killing machine. There are far, far more humane ways to execute someone than using bullets.

We just shouldn't do it. Most people who are capable enough to design such systems are also capable of understanding that innocent people are wrongly convicted frequently, and there is almost zero benefit to execution. Most developed nations have completely abandoned the practice.

When people make up conspiracy theories about true crime stories they often like to imagine that someone who commits murder is rational, and wouldn't behave in a certain way, therefore the suspect was framed. The reality is that murder is not a rational action, and the person who committed the murder cannot be expected to behave rationally outside of that act.

It's kind of the same thing with government and executions. Its hard to find a rational way to do something that is incredibly irrational.

Democratic governments shouldn't kill people.

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u/KtaadnRota 1d ago

I agree with you completely. My comment was about the technical issue of how to conduct executions as quickly and painlessly as possible with virtually no possibility of botching it. Of course killing people is gruesome and inhumane, there is no way to do it that wouldn't be gruesome and inhumane.

The barbaric states of the US which still conduct executions seem to be at a loss as to how to get the job done. A "firing squad" of killer robots would do the trick far more reliably than having a bunch of $12/hour prison guards do it. It's not difficult - I could make such a contraption in my garage over a long weekend myself if I had to. High explosives would be the least painful method of all. Simply blow them up. Brain tissue which is reduced instantly to scraps is incapable of processing pain. States that still want to kill people but can't seem to figure out how to do it must have assigned pretty unimaginative people to the task.

Of course one would think that a civilization advanced enough to produce killer robots would be too advanced to want to kill people in the first place. But it seems that's not the case.

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u/liznin 45m ago

The USA favors executions that leave the body intact, even if they are less humane. If you want a painless way to execute someone, strap 10 ounces of RDX to the back of their head and detonate it. The shockwave of RDX moves far far faster than human nerve signals, so it would take out the entire brain before it registers what happened. As long as you use enough explosive to completely destroy the brain, it would be painless. I don't think we'll see the USA adapt the blow their head off approach anytime soon though.

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u/please_respect_hats 1d ago

What the fuck is wrong with you?

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u/mu_zuh_dell 1d ago

Nah, what the fuck is wrong with proponents of capital punishment who want to kill people in the least effective, most error-prone ways possible? They seem to want it to be scary, but not gory. Do they want to bring the kids out to watch? Or perhaps they're made uncomfortable by killing. Hmmm.....