After a Decade Without Executions, South Carolina’s Solution: Bring Out the Firing Squad State lawmakers have voted to add the firing squad as an alternative to the electric chair or lethal injection, with the drugs used for capital punishment in short supply. A photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Corrections shows the state’s electric chair in Columbia, S.C.Credit...Kinard Lisbon/South Carolina Department of Corrections, via Associated Press May 7, 2021Updated 9:09 a.m. ET Frustrated by the lack of drugs available to carry out lethal injections in their state, South Carolina lawmakers are on the cusp of a controversial solution: forcing death row inmates to face the electric chair or firing squad when lethal injection is not possible.