From The Washington Post (gift article):
An overwhelming majority of Americans oppose live-streaming the firing squad execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, according to a nationwide poll released Thursday by The Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos.
A narrow 53 percent majority of Americans support executing Hasan by firing squad, while 42 percent are opposed. But 8 in 10 Americans say the execution should not be live-streamed to the public, according to the poll, which was conducted in the days after the Defense Department said last week that it planned to do just that. Those opposed include majorities of nearly every demographic and political group surveyed — including people who support Hasan’s execution by firing squad.
Live-streaming it is “going too far, and it undermines everything you’re doing. It doesn’t make any sense,” said Lawrence Sagstetter, 66, of St. Paul, Minnesota, who identifies as a political independent. “It’s just going to cause more of an uproar, not only nationally but internationally.”
Hasan, an American-born Muslim and former U.S. Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people and injured 32 others after he opened fire at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center in Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. Hasan was left partially paralyzed after being shot by officers responding to the attack and uses a wheelchair.
There is a partisan divide in opinion about live-streaming the execution: Ninety-one percent of Democrats say they oppose live-streaming the execution, while 64 percent of Republicans and 83 percent of independents say the same, according to the poll. Among self-identified MAGA Republicans — those who support President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement — 43 percent want the execution to be live-streamed, while 55 percent oppose it.
MAGA Republican men were the only subgroup more likely to support live-streaming the execution than not. Of those, 57 percent say Hasan’s execution should be publicly viewable, whereas 29 percent of MAGA Republican women say it should be live-streamed.
