Anyone Know What Rifle Is To Be Used In Utah Firing Squad Case?

[cooptire]

last time they used 4 mp5s, thier orders were to fire untill empty.

In the words of the training officer who provided me with the opportunity to send a couple of hundred rounds down range with one, that is called a "Stance Test". 

i.e. If you pull the trigger until the weapon is empty and you have the proper stance, you will still be in it when done firing.



Oh BTW, that is a HELLACIOUS LOT of fun too!! 

[david86440]

last time they used 4 mp5s, thier orders were to fire untill empty.

Where did you come up with that info?

[Ping]

Looking forward to the answer on this question. Not the MP5's from TAB, but the actual rifle and caliber used.

[billt]

It never ceases to amaze me how they can literally make such a silly, Federal case out of killing someone. When you have your dog put down, the vet administers an overdose of a strong sedative. From the actual time of the start of the injection, until the dog dies is less than 20 seconds, and it is totally painless for the animal.

To do the same thing for a human, they need 5 guys with rifles, secret I.D.'s, blanks, or a "Lethal Injection Machine" with hoses, 5 vials containing enough chemicals to bankrupt Monsanto, a half dozen people to administer it, and a doctor to "pronounce" him or her dead. And as usual, the taxpayer gets bilked out of the entire outrageous, unnecessary cost. Instant stupidity, just add government.  Bill T.

[PegLeg45]

It never ceases to amaze me how they can literally make such a silly, Federal case out of killing someone. When you have your dog put down, the vet administers an overdose of a strong sedative. From the actual time of the start of the injection, until the dog dies is less than 20 seconds, and it is totally painless for the animal.

To do the same thing for a human, they need 5 guys with rifles, secret I.D.'s, blanks, or a "Lethal Injection Machine" with hoses, 5 vials containing enough chemicals to bankrupt Monsanto, a half dozen people to administer it, and a doctor to "pronounce" him or her dead. And as usual, the taxpayer gets bilked out of the entire outrageous, unnecessary cost. Instant stupidity, just add government.  Bill T.

+1

I've never understood all the hoop-la involved with lethal injection anyway. All that fuss with different drugs for this and that. Just smack his ass with a big dose of morphine and let him slip quietly away...which is probably way more 'humane' than what most death-row inmates originally did to someone else in order to arrive in their current situation to begin with.

[Sponsor]

[fightingquaker13]

As I type this Peg, the guy is an hour away from death. I agree with you, a massive OD of morphine and its game over. However, what BillT describes as the ability of government to make a "stupid federal case out of killing someone", well there I beg to differ. I carry a gun. I once found myself in a situation where I found that I was, in fact, actually prepared and willing to use it. Range? Ten feet or less. Still, that rattled me. For a review see my "Almost mugged in Charleston" thread. I would have done it, but it was in self defense on a dark street. I still threw up a little in my mouth when it was over, realizing how close it came to me having to kill two men. I'd do the same tommorow, but its damn serious business. Being told to kill someone tied to a stake on a judges order? Honestly? I don't think I could pull the trigger no matter what he did. The only way I would is if it were that, or he would walk free to kill again. Then I would. I still wouldn't like it. I guess I just made up my mind on the death penalty. I'll kill to defend, I'll kill to deter, but I won't kill to punish. YMMV. Thanks for the thread. Its helped to resolve a moral dilemna I've been wrestling with for years. Its one of the reasons I like this board.
FQ13 who can now say that he is anti-death penalty, unless there is a damn good reason to apply it.

[fightingquaker13]

Here's the last word on the Gardner case. Submitted without comment from the Salt Lake Tribune.
FQ13

Gardner executed
By Christopher Smart | The Salt Lake Tribune


Updated: 06/18/2010 12:46:40 AM MDT


Ronnie Lee Gardner listens to proceedings during his commutation hearing at the Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah, Thursday, June 10, 2010. Next to him at the table is his attorney Andrew Parnes. (Trent Nelson / The Salt Lake Tribune)Ronnie Lee Gardner's quarter-century on death row ended at 12:20 today when a firing squad executed one of Utah's most notorious killers. His death signaled the end of a gut-wrenching saga for the families of the Utah men Gardner murdered or wounded and those who had hoped to spare the killer's life.

Barb Webb, daughter of Gardner victim Nick Kirk, sobbed when news of the execution came.

"I'm so relieved it's all over," she said, hugging her daughter, Mandi Hull. "I just hope my sister, who just passed away, and my father, and all of the other victims are waiting for his sorry ass. I hope they get to go down after him."

Just after midnight, Gardner's family members leaned against each other in a tight cluster and
 
sobbed. They played Lynyrd's Skynyrd's "Free Bird," singing along.

"I'm just glad it's over. I'm glad he's free," said Randy Gardner after his brother's death.

Other Gardner relatives whooped and cheered as they released 24 balloons decorated with messages.

"I love you, Ron!" some of them screamed, falling into each other's arms. Gardner's daughter, Brandie Gardner, put her hands to her face and sobbed.

For the nation, the 49-year-old Salt Laker's death by four bullets marked what could be the last execution of its kind in the country.

Utah is the only state still using a firing squad, and only four men on death row could still choose it -- the state switched to lethal injection in 2004.

Gardner's story went global when he told a judge how he preferred to become one of the 50-odd people executed in the United States each year: "I would like the firing squad, please."

Some hope the attention will highlight problems meting out capital punishment in Utah. Both death penalty opponents and believers decry the nearly 25 years Gardner spent between his conviction and execution for the April 1985 murder of Michael Burdell.

Earlier this month, attorneys for the son of a

 
Provo woman killed in her home during a 1985 robbery by death row inmate Douglas Stewart Carter asked a federal judge to speed up appeals in that 25-year-old case.

"My dad passed away last year. He didn't have any closure," said Gary Olesen, son of victim Eva Olesen. "I'm hoping Gardner's execution will help. But I'm not sure it will."

Jani S. Tillery, from the Maryland Crimes Victims' Resource Center, said her client is only asking the court to "move forward."

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who has pushed to streamline death row appeals, said the run-up to today's execution may have generated legislative momentum to remake state law.

"I'm hearing from a lot of people, 25 years is just too long," said Shurtleff. "It's ridiculous."

Ralph Dellapiana, an attorney affiliated with Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said he hopes Gardner's death will spark discussion "that this arbitrary process be changed to something else."

The last two executions in Utah have been of killers who halted their own death-row appeals. John Albert Taylor was executed in 1996 after eight years on death row, while Joseph Mitchell Parsons spent 11 years on death row before his 1999 execution.

Unlike them, Gardner has fought to the bitter end.

Gardner's appellate attorneys have argued unsuccessfully over the years that if his jurors had known about the mitigating facts surrounding his troubled childhood -- poverty, drugs, violence and sex abuse -- they would have sentenced him to life in prison.

As part of Gardner's bid for commutation before the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, three of those jurors signed affidavits saying they would have sentenced Gardner to life without parole if that possibility had been available. A fourth said he would have seriously considered it. Life without parole was not possible until 1992 in Utah.

Gardner himself told the parole board last week he was a changed man from the person who shot and killed Melvyn Otterstrom at The Cheers Tavern on Oct. 24, 1984.

Just before an April 2, 1985, court hearing in the Otterstrom case, Gardner killed attorney Michael Burdell and seriously wounded bailiff Nick Kirk in a failed courthouse escape.

Gardner said over the past decade he had become cognizant of the pain he had caused his victims and their families. He told the parole board he had developed a new awareness of why he had been so violent and impulsive.

"I can't even apologize to the victims, and it makes me sad," said a crying Gardner. "People at that courthouse that didn't even get hurt, I'm sure it traumatized them."

He told the parole board he wanted to spend the rest of his life counseling young inmates and helping abused children with an organic farm program. Gardner also argued his execution would bring the families of his victims little comfort.

"I know killing me is going to hurt them just as bad," he said. "I've been on the other side of that gun."

Yet Gardner was unable to shed his reputation.

Over the past 25 years Gardner has captured headlines numerous times for attacks on other inmates and misbehavior including a standoff at a prison visiting room where he broke down a glass partition, barricaded the door and had sex with his half-brother's wife as officers looked on helplessly.

Members of the victims' families argued both for and against Gardner's death. All said they wanted to end a long nightmare.

"This story must be allowed to slip into history," said Jason Otterstrom during the commutation hearing. "Our families need peace."

The parole board unanimously voted against Gardner. A flurry of last-minute appeals to the governor, U.S. Supreme Court, and 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also failed.

A bishop with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints served as Gardner's spiritual adviser at the end of his life, his attorneys said.

Gardner became the 1,213th person nationally and the seventh in Utah to be executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

The justices halted executions four years earlier, finding the ultimate punishment was not being applied equally.

Gardner's life and death exemplifies a troubling pattern often seen by psychologists, said Craig Haney, a University of California psychologist who has studied people who commit violent crimes for 30 years.

"We know that abused and neglected children grow up to be impulsive and violent," Haney told the parole board." Ronnie Lee Gardner is a perfect model for someone who grows up to commit horrendous crimes."

csmart@sltrib.com

  

-- Tribune reporters Nate Carlisle, Pamela Manson, Sheena McFarland, and Matthew D. LaPlante contributed to this report.

[TAB]

Where did you come up with that info?

dateline actually, that was the last time a guy requested to be shot.(maybe the time before)

[Solus]

Read the story on MSNBC that the LEO's who shot him used 5 matched Winchesters in 30.30

The headline read Death-row inmate dies in a Barrage of Bullets.

[Hazcat]