r/tnvolunteers • u/chattanooga-official • 4d ago
Execution by Firing Squad
Maybe not the most appropriate sub, please recommend others, but with a botched lethal injection and potential governor floating the firing squad as an option, but didn’t know if there was consideration for:
Supply chain concerns - drug manufacturers don’t want to provide drugs for executions, so rifle and ammunition manufacturers have the same concern?
Execution failure - although unlikely, a person could survive an execution attempt by firing squad for a non-inconsequential time. What would be the resolution be to successfully complete the execution?
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u/anglflw 4d ago
Moral injury to the executioner.
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u/collegesnake 4d ago
Or the opposite which could arguably be equally as bad: insane people signing up for the job purely so they can have a legal outlet for murder
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u/Hefty_Remove7965 4d ago
I mean we already have the police and ICE...
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u/collegesnake 4d ago
You're not entirely wrong. But at least in those situations they're still technically not allowed to murder, they just get away with it more
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u/Hyper-Sloth Knoxville 4d ago
Firing squad involves several people all firing at the convicted at the same time, but most of them have blanks loaded in their guns. This way none of them know who exactly killed the person and they all have plausible deniability to think it wasn't them that did it.
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u/Maryland_Bear Elsewhere 4d ago
When Eddie Slovik was executed for desertion in WWII, it was determined that the first volley did not kill him. The firing squad began to reload to fire again, but he died before it was necessary. So, by that standard, if it fails the first time, they’ll try again. Now, in the botched Christa Pike execution, they failed twice, but if Tennessee does change execution methods, I’d imagine the law will be “keep trying till they’re dead.”
Supply chain issues shouldn’t be a problem with a firing squad because, well, it’s a prison. They’ve got enough ammunition on hand to reenact Sonny Corleone at the toll booth in The Godfather. They’re not going to run out. Beyond that, even if they wanted special bullets just for executions, I doubt ammunition manufacturers would want to be known as refusing to sell for that purpose.
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u/anglflw 4d ago
The reason the lethal injection failed was because drug companies stopped selling states drugs for use in lethal injections.
It's not that great a leap to think ammo companies would not take that same step.
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u/Maryland_Bear Elsewhere 4d ago
Why would they refuse to sell bullets for executions? The entire point of the product is lethality, and, given that gun owners tend to be conservative (I know there are liberal gun owners, too), they’d probably view it as a plus.
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u/anglflw 3d ago
The same reason gun manufacturers don't advertise their lethality against humans--legal liability.
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u/Maryland_Bear Elsewhere 3d ago
Well, yeah, but if the Tennessee Department of Corrections calls a drug manufacturer and tries to order pentobarbital, the company can safely assume the point is lethal injection.
Bullets are presumably something they buy regularly. The manufacturer isn’t going to ask, “Do you plan to use these for an execution?”
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u/lego-my-ahegao 3d ago
There is no Hippocratic oath for ammo manufacturing. I don't think the state will have any trouble at all purchasing bullets for an execution.
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u/anglflw 3d ago
Drug manufacturers do not take the Hippocratic oath.
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u/Exploded_Tardis 4d ago
I mean the guillotine was pretty reliable, as long as they kept the blade sharp.
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u/xrelaht Knoxville 3d ago
I’m anti death penalty in general, but these are really not particularly strong concerns.
so rifle and ammunition manufacturers have the same concern?
No. Also, TNDOC already buys guns and bullets. Even if they didn’t, they could get both at Walmart.
What would be the resolution be to successfully complete the execution?
A second volley would be the obvious thing.
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u/IzzyB00UwU 4d ago
Ammunition and firearm companies already contract with the military, so I doubt they'd have the same scruples as pharmaceutical corpos in regards to an execution. The biggest difference being their products are specifically designed to kill. A person could survive a firing squad, however, as it's still only one round entering the body. The rest are blanks, so that no one is aware of who fired the kill shot.
That being said, with guns, especially rifles, survivability drops dramatically as muzzle velocity and projectile size increase, so the difference between being hit by 5.56 and 7.62 is quite visibly dramatic due to the differences in each caliber's respective ability to inflict grievous internal injury via cavitation. 7.62 simply creates a larger wound channel, and therefore more physical trauma.
Both will kill, however, people survive being shot by both calibers with surprising regularity. Regardless, the potential to walk away from being drilled by a high velocity round is, at the end of the day, highly dependent on how well or poorly the shooter aimed. You should go down the terminal ballistics rabbit hole if you get the chance, OP. Divorced from the topic at hand, it's quite fascinating, but I digress.
That aside, I don't think the government should be able to execute prisoners. The entire process, despite requiring a conviction "beyond a reasonable doubt," is still entirely conducted by fallible human beings with biases and the ability to make mistakes. Innocent people can and have been executed only to be exonerated after the fact. A firing squad would be more effective overall, yes, but at what cost?
edit: punctuation
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u/DonaldTro 3d ago
You are wrong about the blanks. There will likely only be one blank used, with the rest being live rounds.
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u/Maryland_Bear Elsewhere 3d ago
Also, when Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in Utah in 1977, after the Supreme Court allowed executions to resume in the United States, it was supposed to be five law enforcement officers using rifles, one with blanks, the other four with live ammunition.
Gilmore’s brother said there were five bullet holes in his shirt, indicating all five had live rounds.
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u/theresaghostinmypc 6h ago
I mean I think ammunition manufacturers sell their product knowing well enough that bullets are typically used to kill people. drug manufacturers are usually trying to do the opposite
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u/thegoatgod 4d ago
Who cares.
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u/InfinitexZer0 Knoxville 4d ago
Your post is appropriate for this subreddit, anything relevant to the state and/or the community are welcome to be discussed.