Displaying execution devices

Mark Kleiman, writing about possible Republican presidential candidate George Allen, notes that, among other dubious actions, Allen used to display a noose in his law office early in his career.

Even if — stretching things a bit — we imagine that the noose was intended to refer to legal Western hangings rather than the more common informal variety, what kind of twisted character uses a replica of an execution device as office decoration?

One might well ask what kind of twisted character uses a replica of an execution-and-torture device as a religious symbol... Oh, wait.