The proposal to bring back the firing squad in Utah as a way of executing death-row convicts is an expression of the frustration of states over the shortage of lethal injection drugs.

On Monday, Utah's legislature approved on Monday legislation to bring back the firing squad if the state could not find lethal injection drugs. But Republican Utah Gov. Gary Herbert has not indicated if he will sign the bill into a law.

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A statement from Herbert's office says, "Gov. Herbert does not commit to action on a bill until he has reviewed the final version that has passed both the House and the Senate. He is, however, willing to discuss the principles by which he evaluates legislation."

For Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, the action of Utah could be a message instead of really opting for the firing squad as a preferred route of punishment.

He explains, "States are wondering which way to go, and one way is to send up a warning flag that if you don't allow us freedom in this lethal-injection area, we'll do something else."

Utah and other states have reported botched executions of death-row inmates because of the new cocktail mix, resulting in the convict suffering extreme and excruciating pain. These states have experimented with new cocktail because the old mixture could no longer be made since drug firms have ceased manufacturing the medicine as criticism on the ethics of lethal injection mount.

Utah had one botched lethal injection case in 2014, while Arizona also had one where the convict suffered for two hours before he died. Texas, meanwhile, used its second-to-the-last dosage of lethal injection on Wednesday when it executed a Mexican convict.

If Utah were to push through with the firing squad, the convict would sit on a chair where he is bound with leather straps on the waist and head. There would be five gunman about 20 feet away, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

One of them would have a gun loaded with a dummy bullet, so that none of the five firing squad members would know whose bullet killed the death-row inmate.

Utah executed a total of seven inmates using the firing squad until the state passed a law repeal that method in 2004. The first convict executed through the firing squad was Gary Gilmore in 1976 and the last was Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010. Utah currently has nine death-row convicts.

TagsUtah, firing squad, lethal injections, death row, capital punishment