South Carolina will offer firing squad as execution option for condemned inmates

South Carolina this week announced that it was now capable of executing condemned prisoners by firing squad, rounding out its capital punishment offerings that already include the electric chair and lethal injection.

The state has struggled to procure expensive lethal injection chemicals for a decade, resulting in a long pause on inmate executions. Last year, the state made the electric chair the official mode of execution there. 

Yet lawmakers have continued to push for the addition of firing squads, with one claiming that it represents the least painful method of being killed by the state.

"The death penalty is going to stay the law here for a while," state Sen. Dick Harpootlian said during the debate around the new measure. "If we're going to have it, it ought to be humane."