Posted on 05/05/2014 7:14:23 PM PDT by grundle
A quick, painless, gruesome way to carry out capital punishment
If I were governor of a state that executed prisoners I'd declare a moratorium for my entire tenure. I wish that the United States would stop imposing the death penalty. I nevertheless find myself nodding along to Sonny Bunch's case for reintroducing the guillotine, a response to the botched execution of a death-row inmate in Oklahoma.
He argues that America has made its executions bloodless to protect the sensibilities of those who support the death penalty, with less humane killings as a result. (The electric chair. The gas chamber. Lethal injections. All have had horrific problems.)
Bunch writes:
"The guillotine really seems to solve everyone’s problems: It was designed to deliver an efficient, quick, and painless death. It performs that task admirably. I understand the irony of a reactionary such as myself embracing the Terror’s preferred method of execution, but one must give credit where it’s due."
"If we’re going to do something—and a large number of Americans and American states are pretty committed to performing executions—we ought to do it right. And “right” in this case means a quick and painless death. I can’t really imagine any reasonable objections to a widespread adoption of the guillotine."
I can imagine one objection: that the guillotine is barbaric.
But to me, that's a point in its favor. Let's have no illusions about what we're doing when the state carries out the killing of captive prisoners. I imagine support for the death penalty would decline rather quickly once heads started rolling.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
How would you know?
From the time the head is chopped off and the carotid arteries are severed until the time the brain loses all blood and then loses consciousness could be five seconds. Those must be pretty painful and unpleasant seconds.
I just think it's too much of a disgusting mess. Do you have any idea how much of a mess cutting off someone's head makes? Who's supposed to clean that up?
Also, there is too much association with the horrors of the French Revolution, an historical disaster from which we are still recovering (if indeed we ever do). Bullets are cheaper, faster, and less messy. No need for fancy equipment.
But who is going to clean up the mess?
Murat was so unbelievably vain. He just could not get over how pretty he was.
Beheading sounds so ..... mooslum.
Hanging (when done by an expert as it was in England during the 20th Century) is incredibly quick and unlikely to go wrong. There are horror stories associated with hangings, but they tended to involve situations where the executioner was not a professional.
Man who survived a firing squad.
http://weirdthings.com/2010/06/the-man-who-survived-10-shots-from-a-mexican-firing-squad-weirdest-survival-stories/
Garrote seems like it gets the job done without the blood mess.
Wallace was not unique in experiencing that form of execution. That was the typical traitor’s death. For a long time there was a saying in England that “if you did not have an ancestor quartered, you are not a gentleman.” Which is to say that the ordinary footsoldier in the armies of any rebellion would not receive such an elaborate execution; only rebellious nobles and other ringleaders of insurrection would be treated this way.
I recall reading of one man executed for religious reasons. He was permitted to die by hanging, but the rope broke. As the executioner organized a fresh rope, the condemned man ran back up the steps of the gallows. He was asked why he hastened to die, and he replied eagerly, “If you had seen what I saw as I was hanging, you would want to die, too.” Or words to that effect. I think he was an English Catholic martyr. Perhaps another Freeper recalls the name of the dead man and has a more accurate account.
^Also make sure brats who like to cause trouble watch to make it clear where they are headed if they keep messing with the law.
*snicker*
These killers wouldn’t be suffering like this if they hadn’t murdered an innocent person and ended up causing so much more pain to the victim than the murderer ‘suffered’ during their much cleaner execution.
The Blessed Roger Wrenno. Hanged in 1616. You’ve described the story told pretty accurately.
' 
Thanks.
Thanks for the laugh, I needed it.
Should be able to invent a chair that a person is restrained with his head fastened in a rigid state with one of those devices they use to fire a rod into a cow’s head prior to slaughter positioned and angled to do just what you suggested.
Ew. Yuck.
We are not Muslims here, at least not yet. I object to disgusting violent executions because I just think we should get the job done and get the bad guy out of the way as efficiently as possible. Only barbarians throw guts around and make a bloody spectacle out of it. I’m convinced that it’s a better deterrent to put the condemned up against a wall and shoot him quickly than to turn the execution into a party the way the Europeans did.
That could be an interesting episode of Beyond Scared Straight.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.