Free Republic

The man convicted of killing John Lennon more than four decades ago is up for parole for a 12th time. Mark David Chapman, 67, pleaded guilty to shooting Lennon as the Beatles icon returned to his Manhattan apartment building in December 1980. He was first eligible for parole in 2000 — and has previously been denied release 11 times. Chapman — an inmate at the Wende Correctional Facility in upstate New York — was a 25-year-old religious fanatic when he traveled from Hawaii to New York City armed with a .38 Special handgun, 14 hours of Beatles recordings, and a...

The Twitter account @BarackObama tonight retweeted Yoko Ono’s picture of John Lennon”s bloody glasses from the day he was murdered. The arresting photo, which includes text that more than a million people have been killed by guns since Lennon was shot in 1980, has been retweeted more than 11,000 times since it was posted Wednesday. A retweet by the account associated with President Obama forwarded it to his more than 28 million followers. Retweets aren’t always endorsements in Twitter etiquette, but Ono’s activism comes at a time when President Obama and Democrats’ push for more gun control after the Sandy...