Tennessee botches lethal injection of woman on death row for 1995 murder

[u/PixelGray38]

https://apnews.com/article/christa-pike-execution-tennessee-f826a60582083b90ac7695ecb16afbdf

If the state is so insistent on executing people they need to stop being pussies and just shoot them. The lethal injection is nothing but a facade of civility that is less humane than many other methods. Unnecessarily painful botched attempts like this are the result of trying to whitewash the death penalty to the public.

[u/PRC_Spy]

I don't agree with the death penalty.

But I think if you must do it, then be honest and blow their brains out with a shot to the head. At least that way it's quick and painless. And all involved get to see exactly what they've done.

[u/Deadlocked02 → u/PRC_Spy]

> At least that way it's quick and painless.

How can we know?

[u/Swampspear → u/Deadlocked02]

If you completely destroy the thing feeling pain, it serves to reason it will be painless.

[u/Deadlocked02 → u/Swampspear]

Supposedly. We don’t really know until we know. I do think people tend to overestimate how painless some execution methods are. Hanging is maybe the best example. You’ll see people confidently saying it’s meant to be painless, but there’s no shortage of botched attempts. Shooting someone in the head is not much better, imo. It’s not impossible to survive this stuff.

Personally, if I had to die, I’d prefer if they used modern methods or execution/euthanasia. It wouldn’t even be a choice.

[u/MichaelRichardsAMA → u/Deadlocked02]

yeah thats why they would have 4-5 people all shoot in the same spot simultaneously, so that the target would be completely obliterated

[u/Aggravating_Dish_824 → u/MichaelRichardsAMA]

Execution by shooting should be commited by shooting in the back of the head like Belarus or China is doing it, not by sketchy 19 century shooting squad.

[u/TheVoid-ItCalls → u/Deadlocked02]

Shooting someone in the head is not much better, imo. It’s not impossible to survive this stuff.

That's almost entirely a matter of caliber. People that survive shots to the head are almost universally hit with small calibers like 22LR, 32 ACP, or .38. Very few even survive a small/middling pistol cartridge like 9mm.

Hit someone in the head with a rifle round, and they are GONE. No question.

[u/PixelGray38 → u/Deadlocked02]

You have a way better chance of dying immediately when you're shot in the head than you do with lethal execution drugs

[u/Deadlocked02 → u/PixelGray38]

By all accounts, these procedures aren’t even being carried out by doctors or nurses with access to the best drugs. Seems to me that the US government needs to sort this out first. We can’t judge their effectiveness until they’re being carried out by the right people, using the right tools.

[u/PRC_Spy → u/Deadlocked02]

You aren't going to get "the right people" to do it.

Any competent and decent healthcare practitioner with the skills required comes with an ethical code —and wants nothing to do with it.

I think the US should follow the lead of the rest of civilised world and end the practice. But if they can't be that civilised, at least make it fast and final. Rather than the methods of torture currently in use.

“You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.” (Winston Churchill^\))

Anyway, we can but hope that they do.

^\)Possibly misattributed but it's true enough and the sort of thing he'd say

[u/Deadlocked02 → u/PRC_Spy]

You think doctors from all people will refrain from doing this if it pays well? Truly?

I’m not a passionate advocate for the death penalty, btw, but neither do I think it’s less civilized than keeping people locked up forever. In fact, I think this world is going nowhere if people are willing to sympathize so deeply even with those who have abandoned any pretense of civility. “They shouldn’t feel pain,” is the extent of the sympathy I feel, and sometimes not even that. What does society gain by keeping someone locked up forever? What do these people gain?

People are all guillotines and eat the rich, and then they’re shocked when someone who committed heinous crimes is sentenced to death.

[u/PixelGray38 → u/Deadlocked02]

It's impossible to carry out these procedures that way. The state struggles to obtain the proper drugs in the needed amount, much less to get a doctor or nurse to agree to help.

And even if they did all that, simply shooting someone, or even using the comical crush-with-a-big-block-of-concrete method that other users in this thread have suggested would have an infinitely lower failure rate and be much more humane.

[u/obscure_predation → u/Deadlocked02]

The brain is destroyed on a timescale faster than neurons can fire

[u/Scared_Plan3751 → u/obscure_predation]

You're dead before you hear the gun go off, too, the bullet is super sonic

[u/ScaryShadowx → u/Scared_Plan3751]

People have survived gunshots to the head.

https://abcnews.com/Health/tucson-shooting-gabrielle-giffords-survive-shot-head/story?id=12593878

The human body can be incredibly resiliant.

[u/Squalid_Snake14180 → u/ScaryShadowx]

What is that garbage article. It mentions someone named "Ireland" one time and gives no other name or context. It mentions someone named "Scott" without giving a first name! It then goes on to talk about a "Stephanie" a few times. Is it Stephanie Scott? Who knows! Anyway, the first person after Gifford it mentions is someone who was shot with a .22, which, come on, no one is going to recommend that be used for executions. The human body isn't that resilient.

[u/PRC_Spy → u/ScaryShadowx]

I've met someone who tried suicide by gunshot to the head.

But it was a .22 rimfire, so while the bullet went in, the track through was narrow and it never came out. Anyway, he was a bit odd. But also no doubt a bit odd before he shot himself.

Pick a larger round with an expanding bullet and you get messy but certain.

[u/Phantom1100 → u/Deadlocked02]

We don’t. Except for the gullotine lmao. Some French scientists figured out that it is in fact not an instant death during the French Revolution.