An avoidable calamity: South Mountain Community College shootings

Reports, still lacking detail at this hour, are coming in about a triple shooting at South Mountain Community College.

Without any word of the motive or exact circumstances, there isn't much to say at the moment, other than that it this incident was probably avoidable. The Arizona Legislature had the chance to pass a bill allowing concealed carry on campus, but Senate president Tim Bee failed or refused to give it its third reading.

Would campus CCW have stopped the shooting? We can't say that for certain, but it would certainly have increased the chance that someone stopped the shooter before he got one or more shots off, and perhaps deterred the rampage in the first place. One doesn't come back after a fight and start shooting if one suspects the others to be armed. Simply put, two guns in the room is far more desirable than one or zero.

The Osmolski Affidavit

A previous (and admittedly cursory) investigation by Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard's office into Pima County's 2006 special "Regional Transportation" election found evidence of inappropriate access to mail-ballot vote totals but nothing suggesting that vote totals were manipulated.

An affidavit sworn by former county employee Zbigniew Oslomski before the Democratic Party's attorney, Bill Risner, earlier this month blows the matter wide open. Oslomski, who was not a county employee at the time of the election, alleges that Bryan Crane, the county elections division's computer operator, admitted in a social setting to "fixing" the transportation election on orders of his bosses.

Does this mean that the County Supes, the development lobby, "public artist" turned State Rep. Steve Farley, and company stole the election? More to follow.

Call the Bee campaign, ask for compensation.

President Bush (spending the taxpayer dime) flew into Davis-Monthan AFB last night and drove up to the Catalina Foothills for a private fundraiser for the Tim Bee campaign.

Swan was blocked off from the base all the way up to Sunrise; dozens of police worked overtime to facilitate this. Hundreds of Tucsonans were stranded on one side of town or the other, unable to get home (perhaps to their children) or to work on time. To get home from the gym at Rincon High, I had to detour all the way to I-10 and Kolb.

If you were late to work or stuck and unable to get home last night or this morning due to the "security theater" surrounding a private fundraiser, call the Tim Bee campaign at 520-979-8667. Leave your name and address and ask them for a check compensating you for wasted gasoline and lost time.

While you have them on the line, ask them when they're going to reimburse Pima County and the City of Tucson for that police overtime.

Until I get my check, there's no chance I'll vote for Bee. If this is how he acts when a mere state legislator, just imagine the "Do You Know Who I Am" shenanigans he'll pull as a Congressman! What happened to the Republican ideal of no external costs and no transfer payments, of everyone paying his own way?

Layout changes: pardon my dust!

Regular readers may notice that I've changed Goldwater State's template, and switched to Haloscan comment service to enable trackbacks.

To those of you who previously left comments: I can still see them. There's no good time to make that switch, but before election season, before I get posts up about the ballot initiatives, while traffic is low is better than during election season while traffic is high and discussions are ongoing.