The State of Arizona is working feverishly to refurbish its mothballed gas chamber to execute death row inmates and has purchased the ingredients contained in the poison gas Zyklon B that was used at Auschwitz by the Nazis to murder more than 1 million people.
Since the death penalty was introduced to the US in 1608, various methods have evolved in an attempt to enact the sentence in the most humane way possible. Hanging, firing squads, and the electric chair all made appearances throughout history, but lethal injection quickly became the only remaining method in most states with capital punishment.
However, as pharmaceutical companies became reluctant to sell lethal doses of drugs for the death penalty and anesthetic supply dwindled, some states have turned to more classical forms of punishment. On May 14 this year, governors in South Carolina turned to any means necessary to carry out the deadly blow, signing a bill that enabled prosecutors to use firing squads and electrocution to kill the perpetrators where the lethal injection is not possible.