The Death Penalty and Vindication

My Internet buddy Jeff Gamso over at Gamso - For the Defense is against the death penalty.  So am I, generally speaking, mainly because we've all seen the results of our government in action in many other areas and We the People are willing to believe that Our Government would never send an innocent man to the gallows, or to prison, or pretty much anything else that could be construed as a gross miscarriage of justice.

Just how gullible are we, anyway?

For those of you who haven't been following, that was a rhetorical question.  Think for a minute. I know it's painful, but just try.  The majority of the voting populace in the United States turned out in unprecedented droves to elect the Ayatollah Obongo as President of the United States.  Then Obongo was re-elected with much the same fanfare. Obongo is already in the top three worst Presidents in history, and he's not out of office yet.  That's a prime example of just how gullible we, as a nation, are.

So here's my real point.  Our State has the death penalty.  We employ the hot shot as our execution method of choice, which I've written about before (I won't bore anyone with the details so I don't have to bother looking up the post).  The hot shot doesn't work all that well, and the drugs we use are in very short supply.  This makes for a poor execution method.

Jeff writes about methods of execution in his latest diatribe, which you can read here: Gamso - For the Defense: Gruesome Indeed.  Jeff quotes from a book he's recently read about botched executions described in far too much detail.  Trust me, the descriptions are not for anyone close to being faint of heart.

Jeff reviews various execution methods, somewhat casually mentioning that there is the firing squad, and that,

Debby Denno, a law prof who's studied these things carefully and for years says that the firing squad is probably the fastest, surest, least painful way of killing.

Give the little lady a Kewpie doll.

I have advocated the firing squad for a long time, and I'm generally ignored.  I suspect this lack of reaction to my brilliant insight is due to two things:

One, anyone familiar with firearms and killing people is going to shrug my missive off as an obvious ploy to increase my readership, as it's the obvious answer to an execution method and always has been.  So why aren't we using the firing squad?  Because people are dumb, that's why.  Being people, our elected officials are no exception.

Two, the non-firearms camp who are not familiar with airing somebody out actually believe that the firing squad is inhumane, because guns are evil and only the government should have guns.  Mad Jack is probably a dangerous psychotic and a misogynistic, middle-aged white male racist anyway, so everything he thinks is wrong.  And until he changes his ways we won't listen to him! 

To which I say, 'Ignorant bovines.'

Anyway, I feel somewhat vindicated.  I still oppose the death penalty because of the screwed up justice system and the screwed up execution methods, and I have no room for a jury who can convict a man and recommend the death penalty but who cannot, individually or collectively, throw the switch and watch the condemned ride the lighting.  Or suck the pipe.  Or whatever.  Likewise the judge and persecutor prosecutor who can cheerfully railroad anyone into the death house should damned well be able to stand there on execution day, drop the hammer and watch the condemned expire.

And that's all I have to say on the matter.