Why do we resort to ritual murder?

I see that a couple of states have bungled their executions by lethal injection causing considerable agony to the recipients. The drug used for lethal injections is no longer available in the United States and Europe won't supply the drug on moral grounds as they all have banished executions.

To make up for this shortfall in drugs we have purchased the drug from companies that will formulate anything you could desire. In the meantime other states have suspended executions due to the trouble the stuff has caused the users not to mention the recipients.

Capital punishment has a long history in the United States in the form of hanging by a rope tied around your neck. Done properly, it served the method of ridding ourselves of the more unsavory people.

Then Edison invented the electric chair, and the first attempt set the subject on fire rather than killing him. It took a long time to do the job while smelling burning human flesh.

We have tried the gas chamber with hideous results as the prisoner died in agony from cyanide gas. Utah used to have an option to die by firing squad. In the 1890s a man invented a machine that would humanely wring your neck like a chicken.

As a supposedly Christian nation, why are we resorting to ritual murder (and it is murder) to rid ourselves of nasty people? The people who rant "an eye for an eye" are Old Testament Christians forgetting that Christianity demands forgiveness, not revenge.

It costs a lot of money in numerous appeals through the legal system and is far more expensive than a life sentence without parole.

Raleigh Sutton

Elgin