How many people are they executing?

Part of their problem, apparently, is that no US companies will supply the drugs for the coctail used. And european companies decline also. Possibly fear of reprisal/litigation/publicity.

Hence the recent reports of death in pain/slow death/failure.

Will they have a machine to shoot - or leave it to volunteers?

I am sure they could sell the rights off - there will be enough people who would pay for the rights

'Firing Squad' implies a group of men with guns. I can't imagine anyone who would volunteer for that would be somebody you'd want doing it. A machine would certainly be more in keeping - after all they don't actually get a bloke to stand there and inject the condemned man with the cocktail of drugs, they get a machine to do it..

Nanobots FTW!

And risk giving the condemned man super powers???

'Stop that, and we'll see about sending you somewhere warm with lots of targets...'

Firing squad is normally 5-6 people, and 1 of the rifles is loaded with a blank so that you can never be certain if you killed the person. From what I've read, there's never normally a shortage of competent people to carry it out.

As for lethal injection, someone still presses the button that starts the machine.

Well somebody has to initiate the action, whatever method you choose, unless your method of execution is 'natural causes' which kind of doesn't work as a form of execution at all. The point is the person who presses the button/turns on the electricity/opens the trapdoor/whatever is in another room from where the execution happens so the process is somewhat abstracted. There's a world of difference between pressing a button that you know is going to give someone somewhere a lethal injection and walking up to someone and sticking a needle in their arm when you know the end result is that person is going to die.

Having said that there are many records of executioners who took their job very seriously and solemnly, who saw is as a necessary act which they tried to make as 'humane' as possible. Albert Pierrepoint's memoirs were very clear about that for example.

Read that a few years ago, absolutely fascinating book and surprisingly free of dramatics given the context.

I've never understood how this could work. I've shot rifles with both live ammunition and blanks and the difference in recoil is extremely noticeable.

I was wondering about that myself.

If I were on death row I'd rather have a clean head shot than an injection any day

Traditionally it's a group of shooters, most of which have a special kind of blank that provides the same feel when fired as a real bullet. This prevents the shooters knowing who had live ammo. The shooters are police volunteers.