InsaneJournal

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Death sentence methods
There's a lot of uproar lately over methods of carrying out a death sentence. What I don't understand is why the gas chamber hasn't been resurrected and done right.

The basis for a good one is this simple observation: the human body doesn't detect a lack of oxygen, it detects an excess of carbon dioxide. As long as you keep the CO2 concentration from rising, your body will happily tell your brain that there's absolutely nothing wrong at all right up to the point where your brain isn't functioning well enough to receive the message. You won't notice any difficulty breathing, no discomfort, no gasping for breath. You'll basically slip right off to sleep as your body shuts down.

So, to do a gas chamber right, get rid of that stupid cyanide gas generator. Use argon or xenon or nitrogen, basically one of the inert gases. Anybody with a background in technical diving should be able to give you lots of pointers on how various screw-ups in the gas mix will kill you without giving you a hint of anything being wrong, which is exactly what you're looking for. Fill the chamber with the gas, replacing all the O2, make sure you're cycling the gas through a CO2 scrubber to keep the level down, and wait. It'll take a bit longer to insure death, you'll want to forego the stopwatch in favor of monitoring pulse, respiration and brain function to be sure you get it right, but it should be fairly fool-proof.