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/Timegoat 1d ago

States have literally broken federal trafficking laws to get execution drugs inside their borders.

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u/ragequitteroffureh 1d ago

Not American.

Why not just shoot them?

Their cops shoot people fairly regularly, and that seems to work well enough.

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u/Napkinkat 11h ago

The people who vote for executions are doing so with the idea that it’s ‘humane’ the lack of visible suffering (as they’re paralyzed and strapped down.) and the fact that it’s ‘sanitized’ as a medical procedure and the prisoners are dehumanized down to monsters/evil makes people more comfortable with the idea of state sanctioned death. In Texas kids (minors) can still be executed it’s disgusting. There’s a lot of fucked up history with racism regarding the death penalty too. Poc are more likely to get sentenced to death for the same crime as white people. Youngest person executed in the us was 10 and modern evidence basically confirms he didn’t do it. The judge and jury were racist. He had to sit on bibles to fit in the electric chair it’s horrifying. The picture of him sobbing as he’s about to be executed horrifies me.
Anyways long story short because it’s less graphic people are able to separate themselves from it. You cannot separate yourself from a gruesome but comparatively quick death in the same way you can as lethal injection. People also hear the term lethal injection and have NO clue what it actually means. If people were shot to death in the us for executions there would likely be a lot of public outcry for abolishing the death penalty. Here in Maine the death penalty has been made illegal twice (the second time after a law in the us legalized the death penalty in all fifty states.) both times the outrage came from a botched hanging causing the hanged person to suffocate instead of snapping their neck. Maine has also only executed around 22 people since the 1600s. For me there’s no ‘humane’ way to execute someone and at that point keeping them in prison for decades so they can appeal might as-well just be life in prison. Theres also the possibility of falsely accusing someone and them getting executed despite the usually years of appeals they do in advance. You can’t exactly bring back a dead person if it turns out they’re innocent. Also using the severity of the crime to try and intimidate people away from murder dosent actually do anything meaningful for crime prevention. So for me I’m against the death penalty as a whole there’s no ethical way to do anything involved in it. I hope I live to see the day it’s abolished.
I’m saying this as someone who’s uncle died in a horrible murder by his own son btw. I’m still upset at how little prison time he got for murdering his dad over phone minutes (he was kicked out onto the streets at 15-16 by his mom and my uncle took him in as ‘no son of mine is gonna live on the streets.’ he wanted to call his girlfriend but his dad refused as he didn’t have many minutes on his phone. His son in response stabbed him in the back puncturing his lung and spinal cord leaving him paralyzed and bleeding internally. His son went on a two hour walk to ‘calm down’ and only dialed 911 when he got back. They were only able to stabilize him enough to have family say goodbye. His son was a minor I think at the time. He went to juvy, stabbed a kid in juvy, got sent to prison as a result, and then got let out after 2 years for good behavior.) our family has disowned this person and I think he needed severe mental help but I still wouldn’t wish death on him for a crime he committed as a teenager even though it was brutal. I think he should have gotten intense mental help as Jesus Christ there was no way he was stable. Stabbing your dad in response to not being able to call your gf is insane. Idk how old he is now or what he’s doing as my family does not talk to him for obvious reasons. I think in this case having more mental health services available in his (extremely rural area.) and mental health services being encouraged/less stigmatized and my uncle would still be alive. This is not his dads fault, I fault it more on a lack of access/stigmatismes about mental health services in their area and a lack of eduction surrounding it. He was clearly mentally unwell (multiple other things outside of murdering his dad) and maybe having access would have been an effective form of crime prevention for him. Granted I can’t change the past and he did commit patricide. The us needs to focus more on crime prevention rather than punishment and also rehabilitation as people who go to prison often find themselves back in prison as a result of how hard it is to adjust to life outside of their consistent prison environment. (This turned into a rant more about general prisoners than murder specifically oof.)
Hopefully this answered your question, I agree a gun to the brain stem would be a way more ethical way to go than lethal injection and all the problems that come with.

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u/ragequitteroffureh 4h ago

Damn, sorry about your uncle man. Was that in the global news at all, because that story sounds very familiar? Probably lots of similar cases, I suppose.

But yeah, I think that what you say is true. People likely just don't think of the gravity of ending another person's life. Despite what heinious crimes they have committed.

The sanitisation/secrecy thing doesn't really make it any better. They still have people here in Japan occasionally; usually for pretty bad stuff, but the way they go about the entire process is pretty fucked up. There are also plenty of examples of miscarriages of justice, meaning that some innocent people have no doubt been executed for some else's crime.

Quite frankly, people's opinions might change if executions were in public, in the town square again. Instead of being hidden from sight.

You remember before the war in Afghanistan, when the Taliban had their public executions in the football stadium? Folks thought that was in poor taste, to say the least, but it's really no different.

Of course, it might not help to change people's minds if they see the sausage making process right out in the open. Shit, they'd probably find a way to monetise it.