The US Justice Department intends to begin the reintroduction of the firing squad as a federal method of execution.A memo Friday from the Department of Justice ordered the Bureau of Prisons to include firing squads and pentobarbital injections as approved methods of execution in the United States.The decision was revealed after the memo was obtained by Fox News."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," part of the memo reads.The memo states that the Bureau of Prisons should begin "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."As stated in the memo, the reintroduction of pentobarbital injections is a carryover from the first Trump administration, but the addition of the firing squad is a new addition..Before this federal change, only five states used firing squad as a method of execution: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah, although only Idaho used it as the primary method.There is a significant history of the firing squad being used as a method of execution in the United States. Before the invention of the electric chair and lethal injection, they, along with hanging, were the primary methods of capital punishment.Notable cases of execution by this method, like the case of Gary Gilmore in the 1970s, have made this method of execution seem a tad verbose, but execution by firing squad has continued as an effective, if seldom used, method of execution.The last person to be executed by firing squad actually happened quite recently, with the execution of Brad Sigmon in March of 2025 in South Carolina, marking the first time in 15 years the execution method had been utilized.
