Utah to Become the Only State to Allow Firing Squad to Carry out the Death Penalty

Source - Lawmakers have passed a bill that would make Utah the only state to allow firing squads for carrying out a death penalty if there is a shortage of execution drugs.

The passage of the bill by the state Senate on Tuesday comes as states struggle to obtain lethal injection drugs amid a nationwide shortage.

The bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Paul Ray of Clearfield, touted the measure as being a more humane form of execution. Ray argued that a team of trained marksmen is faster and more humane than the drawn-out deaths that have occurred in botched lethal injections.

The bill gives Utah options, he said. "We would love to get the lethal injection worked out so we can continue with that but if not, now we have a backup plan," Ray told The Associated Press.

Opponents, however, said firing squads are a cruel holdover from the state's wild West days and will earn the state international condemnation. "I think Utah took a giant step backward," said Ralph Dellapiana, director of Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. He called firing squads "a relic of a more barbaric past."

Utah is one of several states to seek out new forms of capital punishment after a botched Oklahoma lethal injection last year and one in Arizona that took nearly two hours for the condemned man to die. Legislation to allow firing squads has been introduced in Arkansas this year. In Wyoming, a measure to allow firing squads if the lethal drugs aren't available died. In Oklahoma, lawmakers are considering legislation that would allow the state to use nitrogen gas to execute inmates.



Check out Utah trying to swing some dick over here.  So itchy to kill motherfuckers that they are trying to reinstate illegal forms of execution.  Whenever I think of Utah it's just Mormons and skiing, and then there's the Olympics but it just jumps back to skiing.  So weird to see the other side of it all.  The side where they are actively pursuing new and improved ways to end the lives of the world's worst.  Turns out Utah is basically just Texas with snow and mountains and stuff.  And instead of football they have The Church of Latter Day Saints.  Instead of Roger Staubach, they have Joseph Smith.  I get it now.  Same dynamic, different focus.  Still not sure about Mormons, no legitimate distaste them, just wary is all.  I feel like you gotta keep you head on a swivel around a Mormon.

The bigger issue here might be the fact that we are experiencing a nationwide lethal drug shortage.  That just flat out is not true whatsoever.  People are dying from drugs literally all over the place.  Every hour of every day of every week of every month of the year.  Why not just take all of the confiscated heroine that's just sitting in evidence (according to both television and movies) and dope those suckers up.  It's basically like morphine right?  Wouldn't it be painless?  Did I just solve the crisis?  Where do I pick up my medal?