More on the Firing Squad

I came across another article relating to the impending firing squad in Utah, and I bristled at this quote:

"It was anti-climactic," he says. "Another day at the office."

This was stated by an unnamed officer who was part of the last firing squad in Utah, one who is likely to take part in this one as well. Just a normal day, huh? I find it hard to imagine that someone can be this cavalier in speaking about killing someone, that anyone can, with a straight face, decry the horror of the crime committed by the condemned and speak about taking their life, in turn, with such a cold statement. Later, another officer who was at the earlier execution states that the process was "not gruesomely bloody, nor was it slow." A bullet ripping through a human body isn't gruesome? Do we need special effects folks from Hollywood to step in to make it bloody for it to register? And does it really matter how fast or how slow it is when we are talking about killing someone intentionally?

This officer claims that, if a police officer had shot and killed the offender as he was running away from the crime scene, he would have been considered a hero, and that this is really no different. I suppose there is a kernel of truth in that statement, that the two aren't all that different. Had he been running away it would have been equally unjustified. Now, had the officer been threatened with imminent harm (or had there been a clear danger to others in the moment), I could understand his point. But shooting a fleeing criminal, particularly shooting to kill, is a concept I cannot rationalize.

I should also point out that this officer outright dismisses any logical arguments against the death penalty with such gems as this one:

"The death penalty...is nothing more than sending a defective
product back to the manufacturer. Let him fix it."

Knowing that we err in killing folks on death row - that we have, in fact, killed innocent people in this way - I find this simplistic mindset all the more disturbing. What's more, if we really are dealing with someone who is defective, isn't treatment of some sort more in order than murder? Following this officer's logic, we should kill everyone with cancer, no? If we send defective products back, as he proposes, where does it end?

And for those who think that we are taking some particularly moral high road on this front, let's examine the other countries mentioned as having carried out executions by firing squad just 3 years ago (in 2007). Belarus, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and North Korea each carried out one. Somalia added 3. Yemen - eight. And the country with the most executions that year - Afghanistan - which killed 15 people by firing squad. That's some company. In nearly every other way, we try to distance ourselves from the kinds of civilizations represented by most (if not all) of these nations.

The argument that this officer, and many others, offer up to justify death penalties is that polls show a majority of Americans favor capital punishment. There are many injustices carried out in the name of majority rule in our past and in our present. But as a nation, we have a long and storied record of, ultimately, coming to our collective senses and doing what is right even if it isn't what the majority would like to see. I hold out hope that this is an issue that we will come to our collective senses about before too long.