Posted on 06/17/2010 6:28:06 PM PDT by Colofornian
Utah death-row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner is set to be executed by a firing squad on Friday. Thirty-five states allow the death penalty, but death by firing squad remains an option only in Utah.
SNIP
Every detail of April 2, 1985, is burned into her memory. Gardner was in court on a murder charge when he tried to escape. An accomplice slipped him a gun, and he shot and killed an attorney and also severely wounded George "Nick" Kirk, who was a bailiff. Kirk didn't die, but VelDean Kirk says he wasn't the same active, cheerful man anymore. She says his final years were marked by excruciating pain and depression from a sedentary life.
His daughter, Tami Stewart, feels sorry for Gardner, but she can't forgive him. She imagines him in the death chamber. "He's going to feel that fear that he put into every one of those men. He's done. We've given him more than enough," Stewart says.
Gardner did get one choice: how he would die. In court, after being told he'd exhausted his appeals, the 49-year-old made his preference known.
"I would like the firing squad, please," he told the court...
...Utah's last firing-squad execution 14 years ago attracted more than 150 news crews from across the globe. They were interested in one thing: the method of execution.
SNIP
Utah historian Will Bagley says the reason this method of execution exists is rooted in Utah's history as a Mormon sanctuary. "I think we need to be honest about it. We have the last firing squads in the country as a legacy of Mormon theology," Bagley says.
Some early Mormon leaders believed in blood atonement for the most egregious sins. "To atone for those, Jesus' blood didn't count. You had to shed your own blood," Bagley says.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
I attend the First Church & Holy Ghost Discount House of Worship just outside Del Rio, Texas. Would you give us or the Muslims a pass on the Christianity debate?
Lawmakers, upset by the media circus, voted to eliminate the firing squad as an option. But the law they passed has a grandfather clause for the five death-row inmates who chose the firing squad before the ban.
He doesn’t get much light in his mamma’s basement.
Shooting violent criminals is a GOOD thing. Utah should do a lot more of it, and the other 49 states and the District of Columbia should get on the bandwagon too.
ROFLMAO!! Funny and impossible, considering we are different sexes (Colo is a man and I am a woman).
And my husband wouldn’t approve.
So, tell me Geraldo, are you still looking for Al Capone’s treasure at Two Bunch Palms?
So is it that you are against the death penalty, or just that it is taking place in Utah?
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Neither, just that Gardner choosing the firing squad is based upon Mormon theology and a denial that the Blood of Christ covers all sin.
actually when that ladey was executed a few years ago for a murder that she had paricipated in when she was just a teenager...
While in prison she had been saved and was now a Christian
They gave her the injection I think..
She died and went to Heaven to be with God..
But the chances of this guy goiung to heaven to be with god are next to zero..
Being shot and executed and shedding your ownb blood in some pagan blood atonement ritual is not Christian or Biblical and is not going to do it for him...
He could bleed out and he would not be “atoned”
His own blood cannot save him...
Only the Blood that Jesus shed on the Cross when he died on the Cross to save us is the Blood that god will accept as a sacrifice for anyones sins...
The Blood of Jesus has the power to save everyone even a murderer...
The Blood of Jesus covers every sin...even murder...
Someone needs to tell that man that Jesus has already shed the necessary blood for his “atonem,ent” and that if he believes in Jesus and repents of his sin and calls on Jesus BEFORE he dies, he will be saved...
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9
Gardner himself believes the firing squad is easier, with no chances for mistakes. Barring any last-minute appeals, a five-man team of executioners will take aim at Gardner just after midnight. Four of the rifles will be loaded; one will have blanks to keep anonymous the shooter who fires the bullet that kills Gardner. A black hood will be placed over Gardner’s head, and on the chest of his jumpsuit will be pinned a white cloth target.
150 media outlets covering it is disgusting..
Gary Gilmore chose the firing squad for blood atonement it is a mormon thing...
Myself i don’t care just kill em and let them talk to God..
Like I said, the media nitwit who wrote this article brought that issue up. Executing this POS in the “here and now” has nothing to do with LDS ideology past or present. It is a means available under current law. The condemned chose it. Bye, bye dirtbag.
Maybe the LDS believe(d) in blood atonement and all of that mishmash....I look at the execution as the meting out of punishment. It’s a little late, but better late than never.
I like firing squad, electric chair, hanging, gas chamber, All methods where the executee is aware of what is happening.
I don’t like Lethal Injection. Criminal executions should be painful, at least commensurate with the pain inflicted on the victim. But not gratuitous.
Gardner is Godless. I doubt he has ever heard of the Mormon religion.
Why ???
This is the Religion Rorum
The post is about a non-Christian religious belief...
Why did you come in here if you did not want to discuss religion ???
So what does this have to do with the execution? Nothing ; just an excuse to blast a persons faith.
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It has a lot to do with the execution. The reason Utah still has the firing squad is because they (at least some) do not believe they can be forgive for murder unless their blood is shed.
It gets back to the LDS teaching (long standing) that the Blood of Christ is NOT sufficient.
Need quotes?
Neither, just that Gardner choosing the firing squad is based upon Mormon theology and a denial that the Blood of Christ covers all sin.
I kind of look at it from a different angle, more of a “the deader the faster, the better” angle. Couldn’t really care less about the mormon tie-in.
Not true, he grew up LDS and wanted to be re-baptized while in prison but they wouldn’t let him.
Blood atonement is his only option to get to heaven.
Gardner asked for the firing squad BECAUSE he has not only “heard of the Mormon religion”
He IS a mormon....
Thats why he has so much faith in the blood atonement way of salvation...
He thinks it will save his soul...
No Christian would want to be executed that way for THAT reason...
Give me a break.
150 media outlets covering this thing live...and you want to know why a single poster of a thread cares?
Tell, you what: Why don't e-mail all 150 media outlets and ask them that Q.
Personally, I’m glad to see him gone. But there are reasons he chose the method he did and it does have to do with Mormonism.
BTW, I was private secretary for several year for his prison shrink.
Who cares what the method is...kill the freak.
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