Lawmakers Discuss Bringing Back Firing Squads, Gas Chambers, With Lethal Injections in Short Supply
Some U.S. lawmakers have said that they are thinking about bringing back old-fashioned methods of capital punishment such as firing squads and the gas chamber, with lethal-injection drugs reportedly in short supply. A Roman Catholic priest, meanwhile, has questioned how many in America really heed the teachings of Jesus Christ on the matter.
"This isn't an attempt to time-warp back into the 1850s or the wild, wild West or anything like that," said Missouri state Rep. Rick Brattin, who proposed bringing back firing squads as an option for executions, The Associated Press reported. "It's just that I foresee a problem, and I'm trying to come up with a solution that will be the most humane yet most economical for our state."
AP noted that methods such as the firing squad, gas chambers and electrocutions have not been used for over a generation in America, where the death penalty is legal in 32 states. Brattin has pointed out that the conventionally used lethal-injections method can sometimes delay executions with complications and questions about its effectiveness, and force relatives of murder victims to wait many years for justice.
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One Roman Catholic priest who recently witnessed firsthand the prolonged and painful execution of Ohio convicted killer Dennis McGuire (given an untested combination of chemicals), shared with The Christian Post, however, that many in America, including Christians, seem to have forgotten that Christ called on people to love their enemies.
"The teaching of Jesus to 'love your enemies and to pray for your persecutors' (Mt.5:44) is, to far too many people in this country (and not a few Christians), a nice saying but nothing more," Fr. Lawrence Hummer of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Chillicothe, Ohio, told CP in an email Tuesday.
The priest added that he fears "way too many volunteers would be available to perform firing squad duties or to serve as executioners in any of the other methods" suggested in the AP article.
Fr. Hummer wrote a lengthy article for The Guardian last week, revealing that he attended McGuire's execution as his spiritual adviser, and detailed the prolonged death in which the convict struggled for 10 of the 14 minutes he took to officially die.
"Now that almost a week has passed, and I've had time to reflect, I ask that the governor of Ohio or the legislature end the death penalty in this state. It serves no purpose. People must seize this culture of death and stop it," he wrote, reflecting the official Roman Catholic opposition to capital punishment.
A number of other Christian organizations also condemned the way in which McGuire was put to death, with the National Black Church Initiative saying that churchgoers were "morally outraged" at what transpired and that the "universal Christian church loves all of God's children and believes wholeheartedly in mercy and forgiveness."
Polls have shown that the majority of Americans still support capital punishment. An October 2013 Gallup survey found that 60 percent of respondents are in favor of it, though this support has been on a downward trend for the past four decades.
