When a South Carolina man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat steps into the death row chamber Friday night, it won’t be lethal injection or electrocution that ends his life. It will be three people holding rifles about 15 feet (4.

Only three people have been executed by firing squad in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

South Carolina plans to execute its first prisoner by firing squad on March 7 inside the same death chamber it's used for dozens of other executions. Firearms experts say that could be risky.