What guns are used when death row prisoners are executed? Do I need to pay for my own bullets?

Mondo Social Updated on 2024-02-04

At different historical stages and geographical locations, countries have adopted different types of executions for prisoners. In China, it used to be mainly used:"Type 56 semi-automatic rifle"or"Five-Fourth pistol", equipped with 762 mm bullets.

However, in order to alleviate the psychological pressure on prisoners and executioners, the use of firearms has been avoided as much as possible in the execution of the death penalty in favor of internationally accepted methods"Lethal injection"way.

The death penalty has long been regarded as an important means for the state to maintain social order and dignity. Since its birth, the execution method has gone through extremely cruel methods such as five horses and Ling Chi to the ** period"A knife stream"and now a more humanitarian, minimized suffering for prisoners.

This evolution reflects the increased level of civilization in society and our respect for the dignity of life.

In the execution of the death penalty, it is very important to choose the right one. Fast rate of fire, instantaneous damage, and rapid lethality are the common choice for modern execution. In the early days of liberation, when China's lower-level public security system carried out the death penalty, it often happened that a few shots could not kill people, which brought great suffering to the prisoners and also made the executors feel very troubled.

To avoid this from happening, it is necessary to choose the right one.

Therefore, later, the unified use of the "five or six semi-automatic rifle", this kind of rifle is light and easy to hold, high shooting accuracy, and has a strong lethality. Until the end of the nineties, such rifles were still used in some places, and "May Fourth" pistols were used in others.

The bullets used in these guns are inexpensive, about no more than a dollar. But why are there any doubts about the need to charge bullet fees for executions?

In some places, when the death penalty is carried out, the prisoner will be charged for bullets, and the prisoner's expenses during the detention period will also be charged to the family, and the fee standard is different in each place, generally about three or five yuan.

This symbolic form of charging is confusing, with some questioning that the state cannot even come up with a few dollars. But in reality, this may have something to do with the professional habits of ancient Chinese executioners.

In ancient China, executioners enforced the law on behalf of the state, but they were not public officials and therefore collected a certain amount of money from the families of the prisoners before they were executed. On the one hand, the fee can make the family feel that the execution is faster, reduce the pain of the prisoner, and prevent the family from hating the executioner. On the other hand, it can also soothe the conscience of the executioner, because the money they receive represents "trust" and not enmity with the deceased, so as to avoid being haunted by ghosts at night.

Until the nineties, some of those who carried out sentences were affected by this shadow. Since they grew up in peacetime, they would not usually use firearms to hurt people for no reason, so they only charged a symbolic amount of one or two yuan to achieve a psychological balance to appease the families of prisoners and themselves.

However, in the 21st century, the use of firearms to carry out the death penalty not only punishes the prisoner, but also brings a serious psychological burden and even trauma to the executor, so this phenomenon no longer exists.

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