Newsmax Host Greg Kelly Explains How To Properly Execute Someone by Firing Squad: ‘You Want To Aim at the Heart’ 

Newsmax host Greg Kelly responded to a botched lethal injection of a death row inmate by saying the problem is that the states are no longer killing people via firing squad.

On Wednesday evening, Tennessee attempted to execute 50-year-old Christa Pike, who was found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995 when Pike was 18. According to a reporter who witnessed the attempted lethal injection, Pike received a dose of pentobarbital, which was supposed to kill her. When it did not, she was administered a second dose but remained alive.

Pike remains hospitalized and is in critical condition. A lawyer for Pike called the ordeal “cruel and torturous.”

On Thursday’s Greg Kelly Reports, the host offered a solution – of sorts. The problem, he said, was not the death penalty in general, but the method in this particular case. After citing several instances where execution by lethal injection had gone wrong, the host stated that the firing squad is the way to go.

“You can’t really screw that up,” Kelly said. “They come in, they strap the dude to the chair, they blindfold him. They have trained marksmen, you know, law enforcement officers. Law enforcement officers don’t use injections very often, so it could be screwed up. But they know how to shoot, and they aim at the heart, which is very critical here. You want to aim at the heart. That’s the most humane way to do this.”

Kelly cited Dr. James Williams, an opponent of the death penalty, who says that if someone is to be put to death, a firing squad is the least cruel way to do so.

“He doesn’t actually like the death penalty,” Kelly continued. “But a lot of inmates have reached out to him if they don’t want to undergo lethal injection. And this guy is the expert in the world that says a firing squad is less painful.”

Kelly quoted Williams, who said in 2025, “There is a lot of evidence that the near-instant loss of blood pressure means no blood gets to the brainstem and there is a rapid loss of consciousness, i.e., not that much pain. I interviewed several U.S. Military field medics who witnessed men shot in the heart at very close quarters. In every case, the victim stopped moving purposefully within a few seconds and did not vocalize or express that they were experiencing pain.”

Watch above via Newsmax.

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