First, I'll admit; I'm always second guessing myself when it comes to the death penalty. Sometimes I feel it's right, sometimes I think it's not.
I wonder what cost has to do with capital punishment. The cost-argument usually makes it's appearence in death-penalty-threads. Are there so many executions that the manner of execution actually makes a real difference in state expenditure? I thought it was the extended judiciary proceedings and the need of maintaining a death row, that made the death penalty expensive.
It is the appeals, mostly, that up the cost of capital punishment, yes. The cost of the literal execution isn't really a thing. I mean it is, as it costs money not just to buy drugs and pay medical personnel, but to set the thing up, make sure it works, hold a press conference, deal with processing viewing requests, etc., etc. It's not an amount that'd likely be significant in the scheme of things, and certainly the firing squad vs. lethal injection wouldn't really make a difference.
If cost is a real issue, why not build one big nitrogen chamber-crematorium complex, located in the middle of the country? Cheap and easy.
That's not possible for a few reasons. I don't believe it's a method that's used. Even if it was approved by some states, capital punishment within states is within states. Federal is federal. If someone convicted of a crime in Texas is sentenced to death, Texas has to execute the person - can't send them to Nebraska or whatever.
Perhaps this cost-consciousness comes from the wish to degrade the convicts even further? They're such bad people, even their deaths should be an insult? I know, it's about child murderers or worse. But when they're dead, their deaths don't mean anything to them anymore. They're only relevant to us.
It's not about child murderers or worse. I mean some are, but there are plenty of people executed for shooting someone during a robbery or what have you.
A second thought, on the firing squad (since I've already Godwinned myself in this post). How many people are capable of shooting other people on a regular basis, without psychological damage? I know that's one of the reasons why the Nazi's went from Einzatsgruppen to, yes, sheds with automobiles connected to them via tubes, to the deathcamps we all know. Most German soldiers just didn't want to shoot so many people at so short a range. Perhaps that is the reason why the firing squad isn't used more often?
The firing squad is, again, an option in very few states. That it's an option means it can be chosen by the inmate. The state can't force someone to be shot.
Most states that employ capital punishment (it's a few more than half, iirc) don't offer any choice - they have lethal injection. A few have the electric chair, firing squad, I think someone may still have cyanide gas, but I'm not sure. If the state has the options, it's prisoner's choice.
