 |
| (SOURCE: http://www.politifake.org/navy-seal-team-six-double-tap-osama-bin-ladin-dead-politics-6958.html) |
If we can send The Seal Team Six to kill Osama Bin Laden and other terrorists. Why can we not use them as the firing squad to kill all guilty murderers in America?
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.
 |
|
German
soldiers captured as spies are tied to posts wearing marked American combat
fatigues during Post World War II.
[PHOTO
SOURCE: http://histomil.com/viewtopic.php?f=349&t=13932]
|
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, 1814
|
Military
significance
The
method is often the supreme punishment or disciplinary means employed by military courts for crimes such as cowardice, desertion, espionage, murder, mutiny, or treason. For servicemen, the firing squad
is symbolic. The condemned serviceman 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 over 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.
 |
|
Execution of the leaders of the mutiny in the
7th Rifle Regiment's Replacement Battalion, Rumburk, 21 May 1918.
|
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 she/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".
However,
according to a Private W. A. Quinton, who served in the British Army during the First World War and had the experience of
being in a firing squad in October 1915, he and eleven colleagues were relieved
of any live ammunition and their own rifles, before being issued with
replacement weapons. The firing squad was then given a short speech by an
officer before they fired a volley at the condemned man. He said about the
episode, "I had the satisfaction of knowing that as soon as I fired, the
absence of any recoil, [indicated] that I had merely fired a blank cartridge".
In
more recent times, such as in the execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner in the American
state of 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.
 |
|
Serbian prisoners
of war are arranged in a semi-circle and executed by an Austrian firing
squad, 1917 (World War I).
World War I execution squad. Original
caption: "Austria's Atrocities. Blindfolded and in a kneeling position,
patriotic Jugo-Slavs in Serbia near the Austrian lines were arranged in a
semi-circle and ruthlessly shot at a command." Photo by Underwood &
Underwood. (War Dept.) EXACT DATE SHOT UNKNOWN NARA FILE #: 165-WW-179A-8 WAR
& CONFLICT BOOK #: 691 (Released to Public)
|
By
country
Belgium
Main
article: Capital
punishment in Belgium
On
1 April 1916, Belgian woman Gabrielle Petit was executed by a German
firing squad at Schaerbeek after
being convicted of spying for the British Secret
Service during World War I.
During
the Battle of the Bulge
in World War II, three captured German spies were tried and executed by a U.S.
firing squad at Henri-Chapelle
on 23 December 1944. Thirteen other Germans were also tried and shot at either
Henri-Chapelle or Huy. These executed spies took part in Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny's Operation Greif, in which English-speaking
German commandos operated behind U.S. lines, masquerading in U.S. uniforms and
equipment.
Brazil
Main
article: Capital punishment in Brazil
The
Brazilian Constitution of 1988 expressly prohibits the usage of capital
punishment in peacetime, but authorizes the use of the death penalty for
military crimes committed during wartime. War needs to be declared formally, in
accordance with international law and article 84, item 19 of the Federal
Constitution, with due authorization from the Brazilian Congress. The Brazilian
Code of Military Penal Law, in its chapter dealing with wartime offences,
specifies the crimes that are subject to the death penalty. The death penalty
is never the only possible sentence for a crime, and the punishment needs to be
imposed by the military courts system. Per the norms of the Brazilian Code of
Military Penal Procedure, the death penalty is carried out by firing squad.
Although
Brazil still permits the use of capital punishment during wartime, no convicts
were actually executed during Brazil's last military conflict, the Second World
War. The military personnel sentenced to death during World War II had their
sentences reduced by the President of the Republic.
 |
|
Soldiers for the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista executing a revolutionary by firing
squad in 1956 during the early stages of the Cuban
Revolution.
|
Cuba
Main
article: Capital punishment in Cuba
Cuba,
as part of its penal system, still utilizes death by firing squad. In January
1992, a Cuban exile convicted of "terrorism, sabotage and enemy
propaganda" was executed by firing squad. The Council of the
State noted that the punishment served as a deterrent and stated
that the death penalty "fulfills a goal of overall prevention, especially
when the idea is to stop such loathsome actions from being repeated, to deter
others and so to prevent innocent human lives from being endangered in the
future." During the Cuban Revolution, both sides employed death
by firing squads. According to Humberto Fontova, a refugee from Castro's
Cuba, Che Guevara was responsible for hundreds of
deaths by firing squad.
 |
|
A Soviet infiltrator being executed by a
firing squad during the Continuation War.
|
Finland
Main
article: Capital punishment in Finland
The
death penalty was widely used during and after the Finnish Civil War (January–May 1918); some
9,700 Finns and an unknown number of Russian volunteers on the Red side were
executed during the war or in its aftermath. Most executions were carried out
by firing squads after the sentences were given by illegal or
semi-legal courts martial.
Only some 250 persons were sentenced to death in courts acting on legal
authority.
During
World War II, some 500 persons were
executed, half of them condemned spies. The usual causes for death penalty for Finnish citizens were treason and high treason (and to a lesser extent
cowardice and disobedience,
applicable for military personnel). Almost all cases of capital punishment were
tried by court-martial. Usually the executions were carried out by the
regimental military police platoon, or in the case of spies, by the local
military police. One Finn, Toivo Koljonen, was executed for a civilian
crime (six murders). Most executions occurred in 1941 and during the Soviet
Summer Offensive in 1944. The last death sentences were given in 1945 for
murder, but later commuted to life imprisonment.
The
death penalty was abolished by Finnish law in 1949 for crimes committed during
peacetime, and in 1972 for all crimes. Finland is party to the Optional
protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
forbidding the use of the death penalty in all circumstances.
 |
|
|
France
Main
article: Capital punishment in France
Private
Thomas
Highgate was the first British soldier to be convicted of desertion and
executed by firing squad in September 1914 at Tournan-en-Brie
during World War I. In October 1916, Private Harry Farr
was shot for cowardice at Carnoy, which was later suspected to be acoustic
shock. Highgate and Farr, along with 304 other British and Imperial
troops who were executed for similar offenses, were listed at the Shot at Dawn Memorial which was erected to
honor them.
On
15 October 1917, Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari
was executed by a French firing squad at Château de Vincennes castle in the town of Vincennes
under charges of espionage for Germany during World War I.
During
World War II, on 24 September 1944, Josef Wende and Stephan Kortas, two Poles
drafted into the German Army, entered across the Moselle
Rivers behind U.S. lines in civilian clothes, posing as Polish slave
laborers, to observe Allied strength and were to rejoin their own
army on the same day. However, they were discovered by the Americans and
captured. On 18 October 1944, Wende and Kortas were found guilty of espionage
by a U.S. military commission and sentenced to death. On 11
November 1944, they were shot in the garden of a farmhouse at Toul. The footage of
Wende's execution as well as Kortas are shown in these links.
On
15 October 1945, Pierre Laval, the puppet leader of Nazi-occupied Vichy France, was
executed by firing squad at Fresnes Prison in Paris for treason against France.
 |
|
The Firing Squad in Indonesia.
|
Indonesia
Main
article: Capital punishment in Indonesia
Execution
by firing squad is the common capital punishment method used in Indonesia. The
following persons were executed (reported by BBC World Service) by firing squad
on 29 April 2015 following convictions for drug offences:
·
Australians
Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan
·
Ghanaian
Martin Anderson
·
Indonesian
Zainal
Abidin bin Mgs Mahmud Badarudin
·
Nigerians
Raheem Agbaje Salami, Sylvester Obiekwe
Nwolise, Okwudili Oyatanze
·
Brazilian
Rodrigo
Gularte.
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. In January 2013, a 56-year-old British woman
was sentenced to execution by firing squad for importing a large amount of
cocaine; she lost her appeal against her sentence in April 2013. While on 18
January 2015, under the new leadership of Joko
Widodo, 6 people who were convicted of producing and smuggling drugs into Indonesia
who had been sentenced to death were executed at Nusa Kambangan Penitentiary
shortly after midnight.
 |
|
A local television station broadcast a
chilling re-enactment of how executions are carried out in Indonesia.
|
 |
|
Target practice: These members of the Brimob
paramilitary group practice firing at targets ahead of last months execution on
'Death Island'. The same group will carry out the executions of Chan and
Sukumaran.
|
 |
|
The memorial "Shoes on the Danube Promenade"
created to honor the Jews who were lined up on the banks of the Danube and shot
dead by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest
during World
War II.
|
Ireland
Main
article: Capital punishment in Ireland
Following
the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, 15 of the 16 leaders that
were executed were shot by British military authorities under martial law. The
executions have often been cited as a reason for how the Rising managed to
galvanise public support in Ireland after the failed rebellion.
 |
|
German General Anton
Dostler's body slumps toward the ground after being executed by a firing squad at
Aversa, Italy. The hands still grip a rosary. The general was convicted and
sentenced to death by an American Military Tribunal.
|
Italy
Main
article: Capital punishment in Italy
Italy
had used the firing squad as its only form of death penalty, both for civilians
and military, since the unification of the country in 1861. The death penalty
was abolished completely by both Italian Houses of Parliament in 1889 but
revived under the Italian dictatorship of Benito Mussolini in 1926.
On
1 December 1945, Anton Dostler, the first German general to be tried
for war crimes, was executed by a U.S. firing squad in Aversa after being
found guilty by a U.S. military tribunal for ordering the killing of 15 U.S.
prisoners of war in Italy during World War II.
The
last execution took place on 4 March 1947, as Francesco La Barbera, Giovanni
Puleo and Giovanni D'Ignoti, sentenced to death on multiple accounts of robbery
and murder, faced the firing squad at the range of Basse di Stura, near Turin.
Soon after the Constitution of the newly proclaimed Republic prohibited the
death penalty except for some crimes, like high treason, during wartime; no one
was sentenced to death after 1947. In 2007, the Constitution was amended to ban
the death penalty altogether.
 |
| Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, by Édouard Manet, 1868 |
Mexico
Main
article: Capital punishment in Mexico
During
the Mexican Independence War, several
Independentist generals (such as Miguel
Hidalgo and José María Morelos) were executed by Spanish
firing squads. Also, Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico and several of his
generals were executed in the Cerro de las Campanas after the Juaristas took
control of Mexico in 1867. Manet immortalized the execution in a now-famous painting, The Execution of Emperor Maximilian;
he painted at least three versions.
Firing-squad
execution was the most common way to carry out a death sentence in Mexico,
especially during the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero
War. After these events, the death sentence was reduced to some events in
Article 22 of the Mexican Constitution; however, in 1917 capital
punishment was abolished completely.
 |
|
Execution of partisans by German soldiers,
Soviet Union, September 1941
|
 |
|
The execution of 56 Polish citizens in
Bochnia, near Kraków, during German occupation of Poland, December 18, 1939 in
a reprisal for an attack on a German police office two days earlier by the
underground organization "White Eagle"
|
Netherlands
Main
article: Capital punishment in the
Netherlands
During
World War II, some 3,000 persons were executed by German firing squads. The
victims were sometimes sentenced by a military court; in other cases the
victims were hostages or arbitrary people passing by who were executed publicly
to intimidate the population and as reprisals against the resistance movements.
After the attack on high-ranking German officer Hanns Albin Rauter, about 300
persons were executed publicly as reprisal. Rauter himself was shot near
Scheveningen on 12 January 1949, following his conviction for war crimes.
On
13 May 1945, five days after the capitulation
of Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht, a
German firing squad executed two of their Navy sailors on the wall
of an air raid shelter near the Ford plant in Amsterdam for desertion. At the
time, the execution was supervised and under Canadian control in Amsterdam.
Anton Mussert, a Dutch Nazi leader, was sentenced
to death by firing squad and executed in the dunes near The Hague on 7 May
1946.
Nigeria
Nigeria
executed criminals that committed armed robberies, the likes of Ishola
Oyenusi, Lawrence Anini, Monday Osunbor, as well as military
officers who were accused of plotting coups against the governments, officers
such as Buka Suka Dimka, major Gideon Okar by firing squad. It has not been
used since the advent of democracy in recent years.
Norway
Main
article: Capital punishment in Norway
Vidkun Quisling, the leader of the collaborationist Nasjonal
Samling Party and of Norway during the German occupation in World War II,
was sentenced to death by firing squad for treason and
executed on 24 October 1945, at the Akershus
Fortress.
 |
|
|
Philippines
Main
article: Capital punishment in the
Philippines
Jose Rizal
was executed by firing squad on the morning of 30 December 1896, in what is now
Luneta Park, where his remains have since been placed.
During
the Marcos administration, drug trafficking was
punishable by firing-squad execution, as was done to Lim Seng. Execution by
firing squad was later replaced by electric chair then lethal injection. By 24
June 2006, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo abolished capital
punishment by Republic Act 9346. Existing death row
inmates, who numbered in the thousands, were eventually given life
sentences or reclusion perpetua instead.
 |
|
Firing Squad Comic
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.jantoo.com/cartoon/12237347]
|
South
Africa
Main
article: Capital punishment in South Africa
Australian
soldiers Harry "Breaker" Morant and Peter
Handcock were executed by a British firing squad in the South African
Republic on 27 February 1902, for war crimes during the Second Boer War; questions
have since been raised in Australia as to whether they received a fair trial.
 |
|
|
Syria
Main
article: Capital punishment in Syria
Both
sides in the ongoing Syrian civil war have employed firing squads. In
January 2013, a Syrian civilian described how he narrowly survived a firing
squad assembled by government supporters that resulted in the deaths of some 20
people.
 |
|
Police in the United Arab Emirates made an
arrest in the deadly stabbing of a Colorado teacher at an Abu Dhabi mall.
|
United
Arab Emirates
Main
article: Capital punishment in
the United Arab Emirates
In
the United Arab Emirates, firing squad is the preferred method of execution.
Capital
punishment is legal in the United Arab
Emirates, although it is rarely carried out. Under Emirati law,
multiple crimes carry the death penalty, and the sole method of execution is
firing squad. Current law allows the death penalty for apostasy from Islam,
treason, murder, rape, aggravated robbery, kidnapping, terrorism, and drug
trafficking, although death sentences are frequently commuted to life sentences. Overseas nationals and UAE
nationals have both been executed for crimes.
There
was an execution in 2011; the offender was a UAE local male, who molested and
killed a child. The crime was so horrific that even the offender's lawyer
decided to pull out of the case.
On
May 20, 2015, Jennife Dalquez, from General Santos City, Philippines, was
sentenced to death by an Al Ain court for killing her employer on December 7,
2014. She claimed to have stabbed her Emirati employer in self defence because
he attempted to rape her. She will launch an appeal against her sentence with
the help of the Philippine embassy.
In
June 2015, the Federal Supreme Court sentenced an Emirati woman, Alaa Bader
al-Hashemi, to death for the murder of Ibolya Ryan and planting a
handmade bomb in an Egyptian-American doctor's home in Abu Dhabi. The woman
committed the crime in December 2014 and was executed at dawn on July 13, 2015.
This is the only time that a prisoner has been executed within such a short
time frame and this is the one of the few cases of a woman being executed.
Sarah Balabagan case
In
1995, Sarah Balabagan, a Filipino worker, caught the attention of many people
living in the UAE. She was reported to have murdered her employer in his Al Ain
house, although she has always maintained that she only killed him in
self-defence after he tried to rape her. After the UAE president himself got
involved, Sarah was set free and had to pay compensation instead. However, she
was deported back to her country and her right to remain in the country was cancelled.
 |
|
The
Gambian Firing Squad
|
United
Kingdom
Main
article: Capital punishment in the
United Kingdom
Execution
by firing squad in the United Kingdom was limited to times of war, armed insurrection
and within the military,
although it is now outlawed in all circumstances, along with all other forms of
capital punishment.
The
Tower
of London was used during both World Wars for executions: during World War
I, 11 captured German spies were shot between 1914 and 1916. All spies executed
on British soil during the First World War were buried in East London Cemetery, in Plaistow,
London. On 15 August 1941, German Cpl. Josef
Jakobs was shot for espionage during World War II.
When
the U.S.
Army took over Shepton Mallet prison in Somerset in
1942, renaming it Disciplinary Training Center No.1 and housing troops
convicted of offences across Europe, two men were executed by firing squad for
murder; Private Alexander Miranda on 30 May 1944 and Private
Benjamin Pigate on 28 November 1944. Locals complained about the noise, as the
executions took place in the open air at 1am.
Since
the 1960s, there has been some controversy concerning the 346 British and Imperial
troops — including 25 Canadians, 22 Irish and 5 New Zealanders — who were shot
for desertion, murder, cowardice and other offences during World War I, some of
whom are now thought to have been suffering from combat stress reaction or post-traumatic stress disorder
("shell-shock", as it was then known). This led to organisations such
as the Shot at Dawn Campaign being set up in later years to try to uncover just
why these soldiers were executed. The Shot at Dawn Memorial was erected at Staffordshire
to honour these soldiers.
 |
|
The
Seal Team Six (SOURCE: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/165104-seal-team-six-the-raid-on-osama-bin-laden-on-national-geographic-cha/)
|
United
States
Main
articles: Capital punishment in the
United States and Opposition to
capital punishment in the United States
The
Civil War saw several hundred firing squad deaths, but reliable numbers are not
available.
In
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.
John
Deering allowed an electrocardiogram recording of the effect of gunshot
wounds on his heart during his 1938 execution by firing squad.
Utah's
1960 execution of James W. Rodgers became the last execution by
firing squad in the United States for nearly two decades. Since 1960, there
have been three executions by firing squad, all in Utah:
- Gary Gilmore was executed in 1977.
- John Albert Taylor chose firing squad for his 1996 execution, in the words of the New York Times, "to make a statement that Utah was sanctioning murder." However, a 2010 article for the British newspaper The Times quotes Taylor justifying his choice because he did not want to "flop around like a dying fish" during a lethal injection.
3. Ronnie Lee Gardner
was executed by firing squad in 2010, having said 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.
Execution
by firing squad was banned in Utah in 2004, but as the ban was not retroactive,
three inmates on Utah's death row will be executed by firing squad. Idaho
banned execution by firing squad in 2009, temporarily leaving Oklahoma as the
only state in the union utilizing this method of execution (and only as a
secondary method). In March 2015, Utah enacted legislation allowing for
execution by firing squad if lethal injection drugs are unavailable.
On
March 23, 2015, firing squad was reauthorized in Utah as a viable method of
execution if, and only if the state was unable to obtain the drugs necessary to
carry out a lethal injection execution. Prior to this reauthorization, firing
squad was only a method of execution in Utah if chosen by an inmate before
lethal injection became the sole means of execution. The most recent execution
by this method was that of Ronnie Gardner. By his own choosing, Gardner was
executed by firing squad in Utah on June 17, 2010. For execution by this
method, the inmate is typically bound to a chair with leather straps across his
waist and head, in front of an oval-shaped canvas wall. The chair is surrounded
by sandbags to absorb the inmate's blood. A black hood is pulled over the
inmate's head. A doctor locates the inmate's heart with a stethoscope and pins
a circular white cloth target over it. Standing in an enclosure 20 feet away,
five shooters are armed with .30 caliber rifles loaded with single rounds. One
of the shooters is given blank rounds. Each of the shooters aims his rifle
through a slot in the canvas and fires at the inmate. (Weisberg, 1991) The
prisoner dies as a result of blood loss caused by rupture of the heart or a
large blood vessel, or tearing of the lungs. The person shot loses
consciousness when shock causes a fall in the supply of blood to the brain. If
the shooters miss the heart, by accident or intention, the prisoner bleeds to
death slowly. (Hillman, 1992 and Weisberg, 1991)
As for what firearm to
be used in the firing squad, there are two rifles recommended by my friend, who
loves weapons. They are:
1.
FN FAL Rifle
.gif) |
| FAL 50.63 variant, featuring a folding-stock and reduced barrel length. |
2.
M14 Rifle
 |
|
M1 Garand with en bloc clips.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment