Are Firing Squad Executions Seeing a Revival in the U.S.?

The United States Disciplinary Barracks, where Nidal Malik Hasan is being held on death row, is seen in Fort Leavenworth.

Hasan, the U.S.

Army Major who was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others during a mass shooting at Fort Hood in 2009, has been approved by President Donald Trump for execution by military firing squad. —Paul Hennessy—SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images Lethal injection has long been the prevailing method for carrying out the death penalty in the U.S.

But supply-chain issues and a series of high-profile botched executions are increasingly causing officials around the country to weigh alternative options —including one that, until recently, had been all but entirely left in the past .

Following the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee last week—the second botched execution in the state this year using lethal injection—several Tennessee lawmakers have publicly called for the state to turn to other methods.

“If we’re having this much trouble with this particular means of execution, we need to take it off the table and go to something that’s far more reliable and predictable,” Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson said while speaking on a local radio show on Monday.

Republican Rep.

Tim Burchett, who represents Tennessee's second congressional district in the House, similarly told local station WVLT last Friday that Tennessee should abandon lethal injection in favor of other methods that have “very little room for mistakes.” Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton told The Associated Press in an interview published on Monday that “I don’t think there’s any method that’s off the table at this point.” Among the potential alternatives named by both Johnson and Burchett was execution by firing squad.

The method has been used exceedingly rarely in the U.S.: between 1976 and 2024, just three people were put to death by firing squad in the country, all of them in Utah.

But the Tennessee lawmakers aren’t the only ones who have recently suggested reviving the practice—and some state officials and President Donald Trump have already made moves to do just that.

Trump on Monday approved the U.S.

Army’s first execution of a soldier via firing squad since World War II, greenlighting the use of the method to put to death Nidal Hasan, a former U.S.

Army major and psychiatrist who was convicted of killing 13 people in a mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, following a recommendation by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Hasan’s execution is scheduled to take place on Dec.