Justice done

I have written a few times here about Jared Lee Lochner, the gunman in the Tucson shooting a year and a half ago, who killed 6 and severely wounded Senator Gabrielle Giffords among others. My last post on the subject was about how nuts it was that Lochner was being forcibly drugged so that he could be sane enough to be tried and sentenced to death.

So I groaned on Sunday when I read in the Los Angeles Times that Lochner, after being drugged and treated at a psychiatric prison, was going to be declared competent to stand trial at a hearing. I thought the insanity was going to continue.

On Tuesday, when the hearing took place, I was relieved to hear that Lochner, who did appear to be calmer and reasonable, plead guilty and that there will be no trial and no death penalty. This spares everyone a wrenching and expensive high-profile trial, and, best of all, at least in this case, it stops the insanity of the government having a hand in murder.

Lochner will no doubt get life without parole, which is absolutely appropriate. I hope he gets the helps he needs to be well in prison. The only other thing I’ll say is that, with all the hand-wringing going on but no action being taken after all the mass shootings that have happened, including the recent ones at a movie theater and at a Sikh temple, it appears very much that the N.R.A has America by the balls.