GARY GILMORE CRITICIZED THE ABOLITIONIST

            On this date, January 17, 1977, Gary Gilmore was the first person executed in America by the firing squad after the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. He was one of those condemned killers on Death Row who needed a suicide assist, he was executed 6 months after the murders and 3 months after being sentenced to death. What a swift and sure execution!

            Unlike Amrozi the Smiling Assassin and Al Rashidi, Gary Gilmore was very brave when he came face to face with the gunfire, his trademark quote, “Let’s do it!” will always be in the mind of death penalty supporters.

Portland Police Bureau mug shot of Gary Gilmore

          Everybody knows his trademark quote, “Let’s do it!” but Unit Force 1109 also remembers another quote from him where he criticized the abolitionist for delaying his execution date.

At a Board of Pardons hearing in November 1976, Gilmore said of the efforts by the ACLU and others to prevent his January 17, 1977, execution:

"They always want to get in on the act. I don't think they have ever really done anything effective in their lives. I would like them all — including that group of reverends and rabbis from Salt Lake City — to butt out. This is my life and this is my death. It's been sanctioned by the courts that I die and I accept that."

                What an embarrassment for the ACLU as the first man executed in the United States (since 1976), even criticize them by saying they did nothing effective in their lives. 

(SOURCE: http://www.jantoo.com/cartoons/keywords/firing-squads & http://www.jantoo.com/cartoons/lowres/209/20902271_low.jpg)