Back to Basics on Capital Punishment
On April 24, 2026 the U.S. Department of Justice said that it was strengthening the federal death penalty by, among other things, reintroducing firing squads as an execution method.
According to a press release posted by the DOJ, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that “[t]he prior administration failed in its duty to protect the American people by refusing to pursue and carry out the ultimate punishment against the most dangerous criminals, including terrorists, child murderers, and cop killers.… [u]nder President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing with victims.”
In this instance, though, we shouldn’t let the seemingly-antiquated nature of the firing squad distract us from its effectiveness.
There have been many instances during the second Trump administration where a headline has drawn shock. Not because it’s announcing an extreme or objectionable new policy, but because it’s announcing something that’s so common sense it’s almost unbelievable that it wasn’t being done already. What do you mean that we‘re halting $22 billion in grants for migrants? We were spending that under Biden?
Returning to firing squads is another one of those cases. There are a lot of principled arguments against the death penalty. I would likely need many more words than the fine editors of The American Spectator are willing to give me to address them all.
To be sure, there’s sometimes a risk that a person could be wrongly executed. But there are many instances where the evidence goes far beyond a reasonable doubt, and there’s really no doubt at all. Does anybody think convicted Parkland, Florida school shooter Nicholas Cruz isn’t the right guy?
But that’s all beside the point. So long as we are going to use capital punishment, why not firing squads?
It’s difficult to argue that lethal injection, the most common method of capital punishment used in the United States, is better. For one, it’s expensive. To cite one example, the drug used by Indiana carries a price tag of about $300,000 per execution. The drugs are also often not readily available for reasons outside of cost: many executions have been put on hold because drug-makers refuse to provide them for capital punishment.
Lethal injections are also difficult to administer and can easily go wrong during administration. According to a report from the Death Penalty Information Center, lethal injections were the most likely execution method to be botched.
If lethal injections are complex, risky, and costly, firing squads are the opposite. The same report found that firing squads were the method least likely to be botched — in fact, the rate wasn’t just low, it was zero.
You don’t need a fancy medical facility or anything: just guns, ammunition, and some volunteers. That means it’s much cheaper and easier to administer. Instead of drug cocktails costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, you can find 22lr ammunition for well under 10 cents per round. For something a bit more hefty, 9mm ammo can be found for a bit over 20 cents per round. And, if we really want to be sure, 308 Winchester, South Carolina’s choice, costs about a dollar a round. If a firing squad does go wrong? Unlikely, but just shoot again.
And for the condemned, I would say it’s also more dignified. I wouldn’t want to go, but if I had to, I’d much rather be shot than get pricked by a needle while strapped to some hospital bed.
It’s no mistake, then, that more and more states are bringing back the firing squad as a method of capital punishment. Since 2015 the states of Utah, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Idaho have legalized the practice. Other red states are considering following suit. The Trump administration’s move is likely to give them further encouragement.
What’s the objection to firing squads as such? Yes, they kill people, but lethal injection does too. It’s a bit messier … but isn’t that what death is? They’re no less executed either way. The resistance seems mainly to be rooted in aesthetics rather than effectiveness. It just feels like a backwards way of doing things.
In this instance, though, we shouldn’t let the seemingly-antiquated nature of the firing squad distract us from its effectiveness. A sentence of death should be just that. There’s no need to make it expensive, elaborate, or unnecessarily painful. If we’re going to be executing people, let’s just shoot them and be done with it.
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