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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   4134 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 12, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Any reason why we don't use laughing gas for executions? All you need it hermetically sealed chamber, throw the convicted inside, throw couple of whipping cream cannisters - like two or three gallons. Open them remotely. And it is anesthetic. Easy to procure and cheap.

The usual answer is that it’s easy to kill people cheaply and humanely in all sorts of ways, but most people don’t want to sell stuff for the purposes of executing people and the ones who are willing to get boycotted.

It's this.

Anesthesiologists know exactly how to kill someone reasonably cheaply and in a painless and not distressing way, it's why they have such a high suicide rate.

But finding people to sell the stuff required (and getting requisite professional staff to assist) is hard.

Then you add on the "finger on the trigger" problem (who wants to be the specific person who killed someone on purpose? Nobody you want doing it).

All this adds up to the weird dance we have.

In Utah, the condemned is offered the choice of execution methods(from a small number). All of them choose the firing squad, and firing squad executions are carried out by four volunteers from the police force, one of whom shoots a blank.

This seems like a way around both of these problems.

Huh. That's fascinating.

I wonder behind the psychology of that - wanting to stare death in the eyes?

They are usually blindfolded I think. But firing squad is also how I'd choose to go. Bullet to the brain seems like a quick and painless way to go. Most rifle ammunition is also supersonic, so you wouldn't even hear the shot. It also seems more dignified in a weird way. Its not laying down to go to sleep, its not sitting in a fancy looking chair. Instead it is standing until you are dead and then crumpling into a lifeless heap.

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