John Hinckley shot my father. I’m sickened, but not surprised, by his release.

When President Ronald Reagan — my father — was lying in a hospital bed recovering from the gunshots that nearly killed him, he said, “I know my ability to heal depends on my willingness to forgive John Hinckley.” I, too, believe in forgiveness. But forgiving someone in your heart doesn’t mean that you let them loose in Virginia to pursue whatever dark agenda they may still hold dear.

I have no choice but to resign myself to the fact of Hinckley’s release, announced earlier today, but I’m not at all comfortable with the decision. To me, it doesn’t represent justice as much as it does his efforts to methodically wait out and wear down the system.

In 2000, I wrote a piece for Time magazine about Hinckley’s first attempt to get approval for unsupervised visits to his parents’ home in Williamsburg, Va. He was already allowed supervised day trips away from the grounds of Washington’s St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. It was a lengthy article for which I interviewed Hinckley’s attorney, Barry Levine, as well as a federal prosecutor and a Secret Service agent who would only speak on background. The piece got a lot of media attention, prompting Levine to withdraw his request for the unsupervised visits. But I knew he was only biding his time. He would wait until people forgot and then try again.