Press Release

Aug. 3, 2000

10:00 am E.S.T.

WHAT THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION AND THE AMERICAN ORGANIZATION OF PHARMACEUTICAL MANUFACTURERS DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT FIRING SQUADS, LETHAL INJECTIONS AND ELECTRIC CHAIRS

In its brazen, ongoing effort to build an illegal monopoly as the American penal system's sole death provider, the AOPM will stop at nothing to keep other interests out of the marketplace. Its most recent effort, "What the National Rifle Association Doesn't Want You to Know About Firing Squads," denounces the electric chair as "ineffective" and "archaic." But in the earliest days of this republic, criminal executions were carried out primarily by hanging. Talk about archaic!

In the twentieth century, the Golden Age of Execution, America began to create new and innovative uses for electricity. One of these was the electric chair, a dramatic improvement over existing death delivery systems.

Why was the electric chair (or "Tickle Me Elmo," as some corrections officers affectionately call it) preferred over firing squads, and why is it still better than lethal injection? Both of those methods are more or less reliable killers, but prosecutors with their eyes on the governor's mansion frequently complain that the condemned dies too quickly. Also, just prior to death by firing squad, the prisoner is traditionally offered a pleasurable, smooth-tasting cigarette, while, in the case of lethal injection, the condemned generally receives a sedative like sodium pentothal (more taxpayer dollars lining the drug companies' pockets!), as if he were a bored suburban housewife instead of a brutal killer of police officers and white women. After the switch is thrown on the electric chair, however, the prisoner has between one and five minutes, before his heart finally stops beating, to privately tell Jesus how sorry he is.

Experts have shown that the death penalty, as practiced in America, is not an effective deterrent. No wonder. It's time to finally take off the surge protector and put an end to country-club executions.