Balko observes:
[A] number of experts say death by firing squad is swift, relatively painless and less likely to go wrong than other means of execution. [Jonathan Groner, the trauma medical director of Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio] told ABC News the least painful method of execution may be the guillotine. But the idea of bringing back firing squads or the guillotine would make most Americans cringe — even ardent death penalty supporters.
That we'd recoil from the idea suggests that we're gauging the humaneness of state executions not by the swiftness and painlessness they provide for the condemned, but by the amount of discomfort they arouse in the rest of us. We prefer the method of execution least likely to remind us that it's actually an execution. And that suggests that we may not be as comfortable with executions as we think.
The Dish 