THE FIRING SQUAD

        The Firing Squad is one of my favorite method of execution, as it is much more frightening and more painful than the painless death of lethal injection.

I did mention that if nobody wants to be an executioner, we can hire a Saudi Arabian Executioner to do the profession. My second option is to order the soldiers to do the job, as they are trained to kill, in this case, the firing squad. I agree with the idea of using a single live bullet with the rest of the bullets are dummies as it will prevent any of the shooters from knowing who fired the fatal shot. As one of my beloved judges, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen said, “There is as much moral cowardice in shrinking from the execution of a murderer as there is in hesitating to blow out the brains of a foreign invader.”

I will post some information from about The Firing Squad from Wikipedia, before recommending two different types of rifles for the execution and give some names of people whose blood were shed by the firing squad.

Execution by firing squad, sometimes called fusillading (from the French fusil, rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Execution by shooting is a fairly old practice. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are usually readily available and a gunshot to a vital organ usually kills the subject relatively quickly. Before the introduction of firearms, bows or crossbows were often used — Saint Sebastian is usually depicted as executed by a squad of Roman auxiliary archers in around 288 AD; King Edmund the Martyr of East Anglia, by some accounts, was tied to a tree and shot dead by Viking archers on 20 November 869 or 870 AD.

A firing squad is normally composed of several soldiers or law enforcement officers. Usually, all members of the group are instructed to fire simultaneously, thus preventing both disruption of the process by a single member and identification of the member who fired the lethal shot. The prisoner is typically blindfolded or hooded, as well as restrained, although in some cases prisoners have asked to be allowed to face the firing squad without their eyes covered. Executions can be carried out with the condemned either standing or sitting. There is a tradition in some jurisdictions that such executions are carried out at first light, or at sunrise, which is usually up to half an hour later. This gave rise to the phrase "shot at dawn".

Execution by firing squad is distinct from other forms of execution by firearms, such as an execution by a single firearm to the back of the head or neck. However, the single shot (coup de grâce) is sometimes incorporated in a firing squad execution, particularly if the initial volley turns out not to be immediately fatal.

The Third of May by Francisco Goya

Military significance:

The method is often the supreme punishment or disciplinary means employed by military courts martial for crimes such as cowardice, desertion or mutiny. For military servicemen, the firing squad has a symbolic significance. The condemned soldier is executed by a group of his peers, indicating that he is found guilty by the entire group. Although a court-martial might be presided by and prosecuted by officers, the instruments of execution are the ordinary weapons fired by members of the group from which he is being expunged. Furthermore, in judicially approved executions, the condemned man is allowed to stand, rather than kneel; in many cultures, the ability or the will to stand in the face of adversity or danger is considered a salient feature of individual pride. Finally, the group action on one side (being the firing squad), with the condemned standing opposite, presents a visual contrast that reinforces to all witnesses that solidarity is an overriding necessity in a military unit.

Serbian prisoners of war are arranged in a semi-circle and executed by an Austrian firing squad, 1917 (World War I)

Blank cartridge:

In some cases one or more members of the firing squad may be issued a weapon containing a blank cartridge instead of one housing a live round. No member of the firing squad is told beforehand if he is using live ammunition. This is believed to reinforce the sense of diffusion of responsibility among the firing squad members, making the execution process more reliable. It also allows each member of the firing squad to believe afterward that he did not personally fire a fatal shot--for this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the "conscience round". While an experienced marksman can tell the difference between a blank and a live cartridge based on the recoil (the blank will have lower recoil), there is a psychological incentive to not pay attention and, over time, to remember the recoil as soft. In more recent times, such as in the execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner in Utah in the United States in 2010, a rifleman may be given a "dummy" cartridge containing wax instead of a bullet, which provides a more realistic recoil.

Soviet infiltrator being executed by a firing squad during the Continuation War.

By Country

Indonesia:

Execution by firing squad is the common capital punishment method used in Indonesia. Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marinus Riwu were executed in 2006. Nigerian drug smugglers Samuel Iwachekwu Okoye and Hansen Anthoni Nwaolisa were executed in June 2008 in Nusakambangan Island. Five months later three men convicted for the 2002 Bali bombing -- Amrozi, Imam Samudra and Ali Ghufron--were executed on the same spot in Nusakambangan.

http://www.themonthly.com.au/monthly-essays-luke-davies-penalty-death-inside-bali039s-kerobokan-prison-1186 = They will be handcuffed to prison officers and led to a van. The van will drive from the prison, through the local streets, and about five miles through the jungle to an isolated beach. Indonesia's 1964 "Penetapan Presiden No. 2" death-penalty regulations, still the current ones, state: "Once arriving at the place of their death, the condemned is blindfolded (although they can choose not to be) (s.11(4))." A white apron will be draped over each of them, with a round red target over the heart. It is generally thought that their hands will be tied or handcuffed behind their backs to a pole, although the regulations tell us, "The condemned is given the freedom to choose how they will die - standing, sitting or lying (s.12(1))": surely the saddest final life choice imaginable. There will be 20 soldiers, members of the Indonesian Mobile Brigade, who will have passed "appropriate psychological tests" - ten soldiers for Amrozi, ten for Muklhas - and for each lot of ten rifles, two live bullets and eight blanks. The state delivers justice, or retribution, in executing its wrongdoers, but the blanks say something about an instinctive human resistance to the killing of a defenceless person. They allow, however flimsily, for a collective sense among the firing squad members of diffusion of responsibility. An experienced marksman can tell the difference between a blank and a live bullet, due to the strength of the recoil; nonetheless, the loophole of the blank cartridge has long been a tradition of the firing squad. In any case, the young men's hearts will burst. Death will be massively traumatic, though there is some debate about just how swift. But "Penetapan Presiden No. 2" has the contingencies covered. "If after the shooting, the condemned still shows signs they are not yet dead, the Commander immediately gives the order to the head of the firing squad to let off a tembakan pengakhir (finishing shot) by pressing the barrel of the gun against the temple of the condemned, right above their ear (s.14(4))." 

 

United Arab Emirates:

In the United Arab Emirates, firing squad is the preferred method of execution. See the murder of Moosa Mukhtiar Ahmed.

EXECUTION PROCEDURE: According to execution procedures, the families of convicts on death row can visit them during their imprisonment and on the day of execution, but they are not allowed to witness the execution itself. The victim’s families, however, may be allowed to witness it. Representatives from the prosecution, Dubai Police, the director of the correctional facility and a physician must be present when the sentence is carried out. The death warrant must be read aloud by the director of the correctional establishment or one of his nominees. A prosecution representative will document any last words said by the convict, and the time of death. The firing squad consists of nine men, who go to an undisclosed location. At least one is given a rifle loaded with a blank cartridge, so none of them knows who fired the fatal shot.

The public executions of convicted mutineers of 5th Light Infantry at Outram Road, Singapore, circa March 1915.

United States:

According to Espy and Smylka, it is estimated that 142 men have been judicially shot in the United States and English-speaking predecessor territories since 1608, excluding executions related to the American Civil War. The Civil War saw several hundred firing squad deaths, but reliable numbers are not available. On May 14, 1913, Andriza Mircovich became the first and only inmate in Nevada to be executed by shooting. After the warden of Nevada State Prison was unable to find five men to form a firing squad, a shooting machine was built to carry out Mircovich's execution. On October 31, 1938, John Deering volunteered to have himself hooked up to an electrocardiogram while he was shot by a firing squad to observe the effect of gunshot wounds to the heart.

On March 30, 1960, the execution of James W. Rodgers in Utah became the last to be carried out by firing squad in the United States before a de facto national moratorium on capital punishment was enacted with the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Furman v. Georgia. Capital punishment was suspended in the United States from 1972 to 1976, when the case of Gregg v. Georgia reversed the U.S. Supreme Court's previous decision. Since then, there have been three executions by firing squad, all in Utah:

1. Gary Gilmore was executed on January 18, 1977, at Utah State Prison in Draper. In Utah, firing squads consist of five volunteer law enforcement officers from the county in which the conviction of the offender took place. The five executioners were equipped with .30-30-caliber rifles and off-the-shelf Winchester 150-grain (9.7 g) SilverTip ammunition. The condemned was restrained and hooded, and the shots were fired at a distance of 20 feet (6 m), aiming at the chest. According to his brother Mikal Gilmore's memoir Shot in the Heart, Utah's tradition dictated that a firing squad comprise four men with live rounds, and one with a blank round. The purpose of this was so that each of the shooters could not be certain as to who exactly fired the fatal shots. However, upon inspecting the clothes worn by his brother Gary at his execution, Mikal noted five holes in the shirt—indicating, he wrote, that "the state of Utah, apparently, had taken no chances on the morning that it put my brother to death."

2. John Albert Taylor was executed in 1996. Taylor reportedly chose this method of execution, in the words of the New York Times, "to make a statement that Utah was sanctioning murder." However, an article for the British newspaper The Times, written 14 years after his execution, quotes Taylor justifying his choice because he did not want to "flop around like a dying fish" during lethal injection. 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 (one, Roberto Arguelles, died of natural causes while on death row) could still opt for execution by firing squad.

3. Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by five anonymous officers on June 18, 2010. In February 1996, Gardner threatened to sue to force the state of Utah to execute him by firing squad. He said that he preferred this method of execution because of his "Mormon heritage." Gardner also felt that lawmakers were trying to eliminate the firing squad, in opposition to popular opinion in Utah, because of concern over the state's image in the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Idaho banned execution by firing squad in a law which took effect on July 1, 2009. This left Oklahoma as the only state left in the United States that utilizes this method of execution (and only as a secondary method). On October 11, 2011, Florida State Representative Brad Drake sponsored a bill to give Florida death row inmates the option of death by firing squad.

Soldiers for the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista executing a revolutionary by firing squad in 1956 during the early stages of the Cuban Revolution.

There are two rifles recommended by my friend, who loves weapons. They are:

1. FN FAL Rifle

FAL 50.63 variant, featuring a folding-stock and reduced barrel length.

2. M14 Rifle

           

              Coming this 1 December, it will be the 67^th anniversary of Nazi War Criminal, Anton Dostler’s execution, I will soon be blogging about him. Here is a video on how the Firing Squad was used during World War II in Europe.