Penalty Box

Death and dying. The ultimate penalty. So many innocent bystanders shuffle off this mortal coil simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ninety-three Americans die every day because they were in the path of a bullet that may or may not have been intended for them. The good news in this factoid is that the number is not higher. The idjit who went on a gun-fueled rampage in Tehama County, California might have pushed the average higher if the local elementary school had not been on lockdown. Reports say that the idjit with a gun fired at least thirty rounds into the building, but when he couldn't gain entrance, he went elsewhere to pop off a few more caps into four others, having already murdered his wife the night before. Police shot the idjit when they caught up with him, making the killed by guns total for Tehama County for that twenty-four hour period six. There will not be a lot of argument about whether or not the idjit in question deserved to die. That was good guys with guns justice, and the hardened among us will quickly point out how much we saved in court costs bringing this idjit to trial and all the consequent appeals process and so on. It was all over in a hail of bullets. Justice. Or what seems like it in 2017.
It's a timing thing, after all. Recently, an inmate on death row in Ohio had his execution delayed because a vein could not be found into which a needle could be placed for the lethal injection. After twenty-five minutes of poking around, medical personnel gave up trying to kill the convicted murderer. “We’re not going to rush to execute,” Gary Mohr, head of the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. “We’re just taking our time and I think that’s fine.” This came after officials had decided to allow this same inmate a special wedge-shaped pillow upon which he could rest on the gurney to "help him breathe" as they executed him. Just like that alcohol swab they use to clean the spot where the needle for the lethal injection will eventually go, it is important to be humane. 
Which may have had something to do with the mindset of the doctors who treated Charles Manson at a Bakersfield hospital. I suspect their Hippocratic Oath was stretched to its limits as they worked to keep the eighty-three year old murderer alive. Officials there said "It's just a matter of time." As J.K. Rowling, and countless others, have suggested “Death comes for us all in the end.”
Sooner or later, we all end up in the penalty box. It's just a matter of time. And timing.