The Justice Department Is Bringing Back the Firing Squad

Donald Trump‘s Justice Department announced on Friday that it is bringing back firing squads as a method to execute people sentenced to death.

Fox News was the first to report on the Justice Department memo announcing the change.

“Today, the Department of Justice acted to restore its solemn duty to seek, obtain, and implement lawful capital sentences — clearing the way for the Department to carry out executions once death-sentenced inmates have exhausted their appeals,” the memo read. “Among the actions taken are readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump Administration, expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad, and streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases.”

Trump has made clear that he is a big proponent of the death penalty, and has long sought to expand its use. His first administration executed more people in its final six months (13) than the previous 10 presidential administration executed combined, and Rolling Stone reported in 2023 that he has expressed a desire to bring back firing squads, hangings, and even execution by guillotine, should he retake office. Trump also mused about creating a video campaign to celebrate the reintroduction of more gruesome means of executing federal inmates, although a Trump spokesperson denies this.

“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,” a former White House official told us at the time. “He was big on the idea of executing large numbers of drug dealers and drug lords because he’d say, ‘These people don’t care about anything,’ and that they run their drug empire and their deals from prison anyways, and then they get back out on the street, get all their money again, and keep committing crimes … and therefore, they need to be eradicated, not jailed.”
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Trump remained committed to ramping up the death penalty after winning the 2024 election, so much so that advocates pressured Joe Biden to commute the sentences of inmates on federal death row before Trump could retake office and kill them all. Biden did indeed stop the executions of 37 men on federal death row that December. Trump was not happy.

“Also, to the 37 most violent criminals, who killed, raped, and plundered like virtually no one before them, but were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden,” the incoming president wrote on Christmas Day. “I refuse to wish a Merry Christmas to those lucky ‘souls’ but, instead, will say, GO TO HELL!”