Gov. McMaster Signs Bill For Inmates To Pick Firing Squad Or Electric Chair

What in the medieval hell is going on here?!

Source: Bettmann / Getty

In the midst of the country’s ongoing debate about abolishing the prison industrial complex, policing, and all sorts of other governmental ills, the highest-ranking elected official in the state of South Carolina thought it appropriate to sign some disturbing new legislation.

According to the AP, Governor Henry McMaster (the historical irony of his last name is not lost on us in the least bit) has put his John Hancock on a new bill that will require death row inmates to decide whether they want to die via the electric chair or, wait for it…firing squad. We’ll keep it tall with you, we didn’t even know that Amerikkka was into that sort of thing in modern times. A firing squad?!

For the past decade, the Palmetto State has put a pause on executions because accessibility to lethal injection drugs has been significantly more difficult to acquire. Prior to 2011, the article describes South Carolina’s execution practice as “prolific” and apparently they have high hopes of returning to their “glory” days as a titan of state-sanctioned deaths. Is there nothing else less morbid to brag about in South Carolina?

Under the new state law, those who have been sentenced to death will now have to choose either fate in what is a particularly crude and cruel way to deal with a practice that many find abhorrent regardless of method.

How soon executions can begin is up in the air. The electric chair is ready to use. Prison officials have been doing preliminary research into how firing squads carry out executions in other states, but are not sure how long it will take to have one in place in South Carolina. The other three states that allow a firing squad are Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

In case you were wondering, according to DeathPenaltyInfo, as of October 1, 2020, South Carolina has 39 inmates on death row. 21 are African-American, 17 are white, and 1 is Latinx.

Is this what MAGA’s think makes Amerikkka great?