Sandra Black

Here’s the critical thing no one is talking about with the plan to livestream Nidal Hasan’s execution: People seeing a man get shot to death on their social media feed without ever asking to see it. I already feel sorrow for the kids, teens, and innocent-minded adults who will encounter that footage while scrolling. By the time they realize what they’re watching and swipe away, they’ll have already seen it and it will be etched in their mind forever without their consent. It will be clipped. It will be slowed down. It will be sped up. It will be looped. And it will be shared over and over until people who never wanted to watch an execution have one playing before their eyes. Is there a biblical warrant for public executions? Possibly. But is there a biblical warrant for plastering a man getting shot in high definition over and over before the eyes of millions, including children? Absolutely not. I still remember seeing the video of Charlie Kirk getting shot before I fully realized what I was watching. I swiped away, but I still wish I could get those images out of my head. I know other people who were deeply disturbed by it, too. There is something profoundly troubling about making someone’s death just another video between a sports clip and a funny meme. The mental health crisis in our country is real, and much of it comes from how desensitized we are all becoming to gore and death.