I assume that psychological issue would apply to any sort of executioner regardless of the method, there's not really a way around that if you're killing someone, there has to be a person, or likely several, that actually does the deed, or at least is the last human to be involved in it. I don't think its humane either, I just meant that in the relative sense where anything can be said to be if the other thing being compared can find a way to be just a bit worse.

I think the tradition is to have one blank bullet in one of the rifles so people can kid themselves into believing they didn't kill someone.

That doesn't take into consideration the damage it does to you as an individual when you have to be part of a firing squad. Part of the reason they fell out of fashion was because of the psychological effects on the people carrying them out.

One could argue that's why it's better. Executioners shouldn't get a clean conscience by lying to themselves.

To your second point, with the way things have been handled these last few years, it would not surprise me in the least if those events were to transpire.

The newscasters will have to break the deep, mournful silence following the second shot. I hope the shooters prepare for the eventuality.

Otherwise, those horrid, panicked moments will stretch on for eternity. "What do we do?" Will be carved into their expressions, it will guide their jerky, indecisive movements. The senior enlisted leader of the execution squad will have to make a decision. And what's another pull of a trigger for an old veteran?

It won't have been done to avenge the victims, or in honor to his fallen brothers in Fallujah, Helmand, or Aden. It will have been done because he was presented with a problem, and had the tools, the abilities, and the wisdom under pressure to carry it out.