The Trump Admin Is Bringing Back Firing Squads like It’s 1890

The federal government just announced it’s reviving the death penalty for federal crimes—with actual firing squads. Welp. I know it’s only been a few weeks since Trump called Pope Leo too “weak on crime”—but surely he’s setting too insane of an example?

On Friday, the Justice Department released a report saying it will now allow the centuries-old method of executing people, alongside legal injections, electrocution, and asphyxiation. “This modification,” the DOJ wrote, “will help ensure the Department is prepared to carry out lawful executions even if a specific drug is unavailable.”

In a statement accompanying the report, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche blasted the Biden administration for “fail[ing] in its duty to protect the American people by refusing to pursue and carry out the ultimate punishment against the most dangerous criminals,” referring to the fact that AG Merrick Garland in 2021 imposed a moratorium on federal executions, as the DOJ reviewed its death penalty policies. 

What Blanche didn’t mention, however, was that Garland’s move was largely in response to the last six months of Trump’s first term—in which 13 people received the death penalty. This was the greatest number of times capital punishment had been used under any president in more than 120 years, as well as the first time it was used after a 17-year break. In fact, before Trump was in charge, there had only been three federal executions in six decades.

On a state level, death by firing squad has never actually fully gone away. Currently, five states technically permit the rarely used death penalty by firing squad: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah. South Carolina used it for the fourth time as recently as March, which was the first time since the 1970s.

“Under President Trump’s leadership,” Blanche added, “the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing with victims.” Ah, yes. The DOJ that really cares about its victims. So much so that Blanche’s predecessor, the former AG Pam Bondi, literally turned her back to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein.

The DOJ report follows up on an executive order Trump signed on the first day of his second term, vowing to renew capital punishment in the federal prison system—which received the ire of justice advocates, and the applause of the bloodthirsty MAGA faithful. “The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment,” Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told NPR at the time. “There’s going to be a great deal of resistance to many of these efforts. And again, they are contradictory to well-settled law and procedure, so I don’t think any of this will be easy to do.”

In 2023, Trump said he wanted to bring back firing squads, hangings, and even execution via guillotine, if he were to win re-election. Speaking to Rolling Stone at the time, one former White House official said, “He had a particular affinity for the firing squad, because it seemed more dramatic, rather than how we do it, putting a syringe in people and putting them to sleep.”

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