The Case for Firing Squads
In an effort to be incredibly morbid, I've asked Gemini to evaluate the pros/cons of conventional lethal injections, firing squads and the option of fentanyl.
Personally, I believe that all capital crimes should involve not less than 10 years in solitary with an insurance salesman.
The debate over execution methods centers on three distinct factors: physiological speed of death, risk of execution failure (botch rate), and the legal and ethical hurdles surrounding the drugs or equipment used.
When comparing conventional lethal injection, the firing squad, and fentanyl-based protocols, each approach presents fundamentally different medical realities and logistical trade-offs.
Comparative Overview
Method | Typical Mechanism of Death | Time to Unconsciousness | Documented Botch Rate | Primary Pain / Failure Risks |
Conventional Lethal Injection (3-drug or barbiturate) | Respiratory arrest followed by cardiac arrest via potassium chloride or single massive overdose | Highly variable (seconds to 30+ minutes if veins collapse) | Highest (~7.1%) | Vein blown/missed, pulmonary edema (feeling of drowning while paralyzed), prolonged choking |
Firing Squad | Catastrophic cardiac rupture, instantaneous blood pressure collapse, rapid exsanguination | 3 to 15 seconds | Lowest (~1.4%) | Shooter misses target heart silhouette; severe psychological trauma to witnesses/executioners |
Fentanyl Overdose (Single-drug or opioid combo) | Central nervous system depression leading to fatal respiratory arrest and anoxia | Fast (15–60 seconds if IV is sound) | Low to Moderate (mostly delivery-related) | "Wooden chest" syndrome (vocal/chest wall rigidity), pulmonary aspiration, tolerance/dosing variables, IV access failure |
1. The Case for the Firing Squad
The argument that a firing squad is more "humane" comes almost entirely from physiological speed and mechanical reliability:
Instantaneous incapacitation: Multiple high-velocity rounds targeting the cardiac silhouette rupture the heart and great vessels, causing an immediate drop in arterial blood pressure to zero. The brain is starved of oxygenated blood within seconds.
Low failure rate: Historically, the firing squad has the lowest recorded rate of botched executions of any modern method. Unlike intravenous methods, it does not rely on finding usable peripheral veins—an issue that accounts for a massive share of botched lethal injections in older or metabolically compromised inmates.
The drawback: It is violent, visceral, and visually grotesque. Opponents point out that while the inmate’s sensory experience ends quickly, the method inflicts profound psychological distress on firing personnel and leaves catastrophic physical trauma.
2. Why Conventional Lethal Injection Struggles
Traditional lethal injection was introduced to make capital punishment look quiet, sterile, and medicalized, but it remains the most error-prone execution method:
The chemical flaw: In traditional three-drug cocktails (anesthetic/sedative, paralytic, and potassium chloride), if the sedative (often midazolam) fails to render deep surgical anesthesia, the inmate experiences excruciating pain from potassium chloride while paralyzed by vecuronium bromide, unable to vocalize or move.
Autopsy findings: Independent autopsies of executed inmates routinely reveal severe pulmonary edema—lungs filled with bloody fluid, mimicking the sensation of suffocating or drowning before cardiac arrest occurs.
Non-medical executioners: Because the American Medical Association and American Nurses Association forbid members from participating under threat of license revocation, IV access and drug administration are managed by non-medical prison staff, leading to punctured veins, intramuscular infiltration, and agonizing, drawn-out attempts.
3. Fentanyl: The Theoretical Alternative
Because synthetic opioids like fentanyl suppress respiration smoothly and induce rapid analgesia/sedation, observers frequently ask why states don't simply administer a massive dose of fentanyl.
Nebraska actually used fentanyl as part of a four-drug protocol in 2018 (the execution of Carey Dean Moore), and Nevada previously explored it. While it appears intuitively peaceful, it introduces distinct clinical problems:
Subjective experience vs. objective mechanics: At sufficient doses, fentanyl does produce profound euphoria followed by rapid coma and respiratory arrest, eliminating the burning pain associated with potassium chloride.
Chest wall rigidity ("Wooden Chest"): A well-documented phenomenon of rapid, high-dose intravenous fentanyl pushes is severe skeletal muscle rigidity, especially across the thoracic wall and vocal cords. This can lock the rib cage and diaphragm before total brain death occurs, preventing ventilation and causing spasms.
Venous access dependency: Fentanyl still requires reliable intravenous delivery. If executioners cannot secure a line, or if the drug infiltrates surrounding tissue instead of entering the bloodstream, the death is delayed and erratic.
Supply chain blockages: Pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors aggressively restrict the sale of FDA-approved fentanyl to correctional facilities for executions. Any attempt to standardize fentanyl protocols faces immediate corporate boycotts, lawsuits, and compounding quality-control disputes.
The Practical Verdict
From a purely clinical and mechanical standpoint, the firing squad causes faster unconsciousness with far lower failure rates than any chemical method. Lethal injection attempts to mask the violence of an execution under a clinical veneer, which paradoxically increases the physiological suffering of the condemned. Fentanyl would eliminate the specific burning agony of potassium chloride, but it still inherits the fatal vulnerabilities of intravenous delivery, bureaucratic sourcing problems, and severe opioid-induced respiratory complications.
The Case for Firing Squads
Lethal injection only looks humane, and it blurs the distinction between healing and killing.
By Alex Kozinski, WSJ
Oct. 12, 2026
Arizona succeeded in killing Joseph Rudolph Wood III on July 23, 2014, the day after the Supreme Court lifted a stay that had been issued by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The state administered 15 injections of midazolam and hydromorphone over nearly two hours. It was, at the time, the longest execution in U.S. history.
That record is now eclipsed by the failed execution of Christa Pike, who survived two injections of pentobarbital, to the apparent surprise of the Tennessee officials administering them. One can only hope that this disturbing episode will cause reconsideration of our half-century-long experiment with lethal injection, but I’m not so sure. Wood’s execution generated extensive publicity, including a “60 Minutes” segment in which I, then a Ninth Circuit judge, was interviewed, and then nothing happened. Almost every death-penalty state, along with the federal criminal code, designates lethal injection as the sole or default method of execution.
It wasn’t always so. For much of the 20th century, states used hanging, the gas chamber, the electric chair and occasionally firing squads. Then, in 1977, Oklahoma authorized lethal injection. Texas first used it in 1982 when it executed Charles Brooks Jr. The other capital punishment states quickly fell in line.
Why this sudden transformation? After the Supreme Court struck down all existing death-penalty laws in Furman v. Georgia (1972) for lacking certain procedural safeguards that the justices invented, 35 states retooled their laws to adopt such procedures. In 1977 Utah executed Gary Gilmore by firing squad, the first execution after the moratorium. But opponents continued to challenge executions, including execution methods, as painful or degrading.
Perhaps states thought lethal injection would fare better in court because it resembled a familiar medical procedure. Perhaps they wanted executions to look less medieval. Either way, the appeal was obvious: Put the prisoner on a gurney, attach tubes, administer drugs, and invite the public to imagine that death arrives cleanly and quickly, without anyone getting blood on his hands.
Appearances, however, aren’t reality. Lethal injection was a terrible choice, practically and philosophically. It borrows medicine’s costume without the people and safeguards that make medicine work. Physicians are barred by the American Medical Association’s ethics code from participating in executions; similar constraints apply to nurses. The job therefore falls to law-enforcement personnel, who must obtain the drugs, find a vein, insert a catheter, and administer the substances in the right quantities and sequence. If the first attempt fails, they try again. In Wood’s case, 14 times.
The supply problem makes matters worse. Drug manufacturers have refused to sell their products for executions. States have resorted to Rube Goldberg-like schemes to obtain drugs from abroad, sometimes under false pretenses, or have used drugs that are expired or improperly stored. The state wants the appearance of a modern medical procedure but can’t reliably obtain the materials or expertise that real medicine requires.
Nor is there an accepted protocol guaranteed to produce a quick, painless death. Drug companies test medications to heal people, not kill them. States have improvised, sometimes using drugs known to cause severe pain and administering sedatives to blunt it. Sedatives don’t always work, and there is good reason to believe that some prisoners suffer; Ms. Pike actually told us so. Over the years there have been numerous botched executions, as documented in gruesome detail by law professor Corinna Lain in her recent book, “Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection.”
The philosophical problem is more fundamental: Execution by lethal injection is dishonest. It dresses an execution in the reassuring garb of medicine, encouraging us to mistake a state killing for a clinical event. Medicine seeks to preserve life; execution ends it. This blurring of what are diametrically opposite functions is epistemologically perilous and morally repugnant.
Which is why I applaud Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to execute Nidal Hasan by firing squad. As I argued at the time of the Wood execution: “Eight or ten large-caliber rifle bullets fired at close range can inflict massive damage, causing instant death every time. There are plenty of people employed by the state who can pull the trigger and have the training to aim true. The weapons and ammunition are bought by the state in massive quantities for law enforcement purposes, so it would be impossible to interdict the supply. And nobody can argue that the weapons are put to a purpose for which they were not intended: firearms have no purpose other than destroying their targets. Sure, firing squads can be messy, but if we are willing to carry out executions, we should not shield ourselves from the reality that we are shedding human blood. If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad, then we shouldn’t be carrying out executions at all.”
The intervening decade has reinforced my views. Deserving as Mr. Hasan may be of his punishment, no one merits a lingering, possibly excruciating death. I have some doubts whether livestreaming the execution is advisable, but Mr. Hegseth should be commended for his honesty, and for showing Mr. Hasan mercy.
Mr. Kozinski served as a judge on the Ninth Circuit, 1985-2017.
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