An interesting hypothetical

[RenegadePaddy]

I chose the firing squad cause it's quick and relativly painless. You stand there with you eys closed and 10 people shoot you in the head. Hanging, you suffocate if you neck doesn't break, gas chamber, you just suffocate, and btownmeggy explained lethal injection, with the electric chair, you have thousands of volts coursing through your body for sometimes quiet a while to make sure you dead.

Wrong, bro..

Only one person has a real bullet, the rest are blanks... This is so no one has to feel guilty about offing your ass.

That's why I mentioned that if the one bullet does not hit you dead center in the heart, you are gonna be in a world of hurt.

Wrong way round, sometimes there would be one blank, but usually not. Any more than one, especially given the fact a firing squad consists of 4-6 men, and you (overly) risk not killing the condemned with the volley.

Films lie, the squads were small, and the range short but not point blank or 20 odd metres.

4-6 men, 10 feet away, aiming for centre of chest (sometimes marked in white), sometimes with a blank round for one man, officer presiding having a loaded pistol in the event the volley is not fatal to ease unneccessary suffering.

[Anarkistsdream]

As you can see, I got my firing squad rules from Hollywood...

[Anarkistsdream]

Wikipedia says:

The process resumed with the execution of Gary Gilmore on January 17, 1977, at Utah State Prison in Draper. The five executioners were equipped with .30-30 caliber rifles and off-the-shelf Winchester 150 grain SilverTip ammunition. The subject was restrained and hooded. The shots were fired at a distance of 20 feet (6 m), aiming at the chest. In his autobiography Shot in the Heart, Mikal Gilmore wrote that when he examined the shirt worn by his brother Gary during the execution, he found five bullet holes, indicating that all members of the squad had been armed with live cartridges and none with a blank round.

The only other post-Furman execution by firing squad (that of John Albert Taylor in 1996) also took place in Utah. Taylor is said to have chosen the firing squad because it would be awkward for state officials.

In Utah, the firing squad (a five-man team) consisted of volunteer police officers from the county in which the conviction of the offender took place. A law passed on March 15, 2004 banned execution by firing squad in Utah, but since that specific law was not retroactive, four inmates on Utah's death row could still have their last requests granted. As of 2006, Idaho and Oklahoma are the only other states in which execution by firing squad is legally available (as backup methods only; both states use lethal injection as their primary methods of execution).

[benmor78]

Capital punishment was suspended in the United States between 1967 and 1976 as a result of several decisions of the United States Supreme Court.

I wonder what happened in that time period to stop it and also what co mensed it again

The Supreme Court ruled that it was cruel and unusual punishment, and a subsequent Supreme Court overturned that decision. Interestingly, as a result of those decisions, Kenneth McDuff in Texas is the only person in the U.S. to have been sentenced to death, be released, then be sentenced to death and executed once again.

[benmor78]

I chose the firing squad cause it's quick and relativly painless. You stand there with you eys closed and 10 people shoot you in the head. Hanging, you suffocate if you neck doesn't break, gas chamber, you just suffocate, and btownmeggy explained lethal injection, with the electric chair, you have thousands of volts coursing through your body for sometimes quiet a while to make sure you dead.

Wrong, bro..

Only one person has a real bullet, the rest are blanks... This is so no one has to feel guilty about offing your ass.

That's why I mentioned that if the one bullet does not hit you dead center in the heart, you are gonna be in a world of hurt.

That's not true. Traditionally only one person in the squad is given a blank round.