shalafi , 4 hours ago

Nitrogen gas, hands down. Plenty of others gases, except CO2, would work but NO2 is cheap. We don’t have “low O2” sensors, we have “high CO2” sensors. I remember a teen couple making love in a helium filled store balloon/display. They died clueless.

The reason for the very publicized failure last time it was tried was using a mask. Simply put the condemned in a small room and flood it, just like astronaut’s hypoxia trainings. Going out silly and stoned would be about as nice as it gets. And having said that, I have no idea why we don’t OD prisoners on opiates. Seems like a no-brainer.

As to the firing squad, I feel that’s fairly “humane”, would be my third choice if it was me. The condemned just slump and die. Hollywood doesn’t do the nature of gunshot wounds justice. People mostly just drop, strings cut. The lack of drama is far more horrifying than getting knocked through a window. Unfortunately, I saw a video of Mexican police shotgunning a protesting student at 1-2’. The victim looked a little stunned and fell like a sack potatoes. Original cowboy movies showed death like that, but audiences didn’t feel it was realistic.

Rifle rounds setup a shock wave that rearranges your chest cavity. And they’re not using some wimpy bullet such as an AR-15 chambers. Something like a 30.06 or .308 is a monster round. Add up 4-5 hits like that, you won’t know what hit you.