Utah's firing squad executions are barbaric

I can think of no better person to spend a gloomy, rainy Saturday afternoon with than Bruce Willis. I love watching Tom Cruise sprint on camera almost as much as he enjoys watching it himself. I love action movies — always have, always will. As much as I would like to write a short piece about why I love action movies, doing so would be criminal in light of recent events.

Last month, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a bill reinstating the firing squad as a legally sanctioned method of execution. I am ashamed to admit that this news invoked romantic images in my mind when I first heard about it. I imagined that scene I’ve seen a thousand times: the scene where the most sympathetic character stoically walks, arms outstretched, into a blizzard of bullets — sacrificing himself or herself for the fate of another character or sometimes even the world. A million clichés ran rampant through my mind. I remembered all the heavy-handed dialogue in these movies that has programmed me to believe that I would prefer to face my fate standing tall on my own two legs, arms outstretched rather than strapped unconscious to a chair. Yes, for a hot second I thought that I and any other similarly inclined folks would prefer to die by firing squad than by lethal injection — and then I researched the details.

Imagine an officer placing a thick, black bag over your head. Now picture being shackled to a wall with your hands restrained behind your back, a standard, paper bull’s-eye fastened over your heart as you experience the last moments of your life alone in the blackness of the opaque cloth draped around your head. No, this is not a scene from a Clint Eastwood movie. This is a snuff film.

The Governor based his decision to bring back the barbaric practice upon the apparent scarcity of lethal injection drugs. This piece will be too short for me articulate my opinion on capital punishment, but I wholeheartedly believe that this is the most backward law ratified in recent history in any state. It is pure, unadulterated barbarity.

The first man to die by firing squad in America in the last 14 years was Ronnie Lee Gardner, and he elected to do so. Prior to the execution, he told his daughter, “I lived by the gun, I murdered with a gun, so I will die by the gun.” Despite his poignant words, I do not believe that he died “by the gun.” He died before the squad fired a single round. He died when the state turned him into an object. He couldn’t move, and he couldn’t see. His face was completely obscured from all those who extinguished his life. His beating heart may as well have been a target stand.

Ronnie Lee Gardner chose his fate, but he deserved to at least die as a human being. He should have been able to choose whether or not he wanted the hood. He should not have been restrained. As cliché as I know it is, he should have been able to die a free man, even if those moments of freedom would have existed only in terms of immediate physical space.

I will state in the clearest terms possible that I don’t believe in capital punishment, but if it must occur by the powers that be, the ceremony must be carried out with utmost respect for the humanity and dignity of the sentenced.