Trump DOJ Announces It Will Start Executing People by Firing Squad

The Justice Department announced Friday that it will resurrect federal firing squads as part of an effort to implement Donald Trump’s first executive order to revamp capital punishment.

Trump’s order, signed in January 2025, required the attorney general to maintain the death penalty for “all crimes of a severity requiring its use,” including the murder of a law enforcement officer or any capital crime committed by an undocumented immigrant.

Under former President Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland suspended federal executions. Trump became furious when, before leaving the White House, Biden pardoned 37 prisoners on death row. The Republican began his second term with a bloodthirsty decree for more death.

The January order made no mention of firing squads. Nonetheless, the DOJ said in its Friday announcement that it had directed the Bureau of Prisons to “expand the execution protocol to include other modes of execution, such as firing squad.”

Some view firing squads as more humane than lethal injections, which I don’t have have a 100 percent success rate and sometimes require multiple doses. However, execution by firing squad can also result in prisoners slowly bleeding to death if they are not immediately shot and killed.

In March 2025, the Supreme Court authorized South Carolina to carry out the nation’s first execution by firing squad in 15 years. Since 1608, at least 144 prisoners have been executed by firing squad in America, most in Utah, according to the Associated Press. Firing squads have not gained much traction outside of Utah because they are considered barbaric. Currently, only five states – Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah – allow the use of firing squads in certain circumstances.