sentences:  No British citizen has ever been executed for a civilian crime by shooting.A Royal Commission on Capital Punishment considered shooting as a possible alternative to hanging, although the findings published in 1953 concluded shooting was not sufficiently effective a means of execution to justify a switch to the method from hanging.Since 1608, about 142 men have been judicially shot in the United States and its English-speaking predecessor territories, excluding executions related to the American Civil War.