Volleyball was Kyle Pitman’s secondary sport, but it was hard to tell with his effort and influence on the court.

I have a book in my personal library titled, “How to Lie with Statistics.”

A 30-year-old man committed suicide on an Ahwatukee Foothills street Monday night, police said.

The state's more than 38,000 medical marijuana users are in no danger of losing their medication, at least not at the ballot box.

While driving on Ray Road recently I saw a bumper sticker reading: “People who think guns kill people must think that pencils misspell words.”


• On May 19 at 8 a.m. police took a report of a stolen license plate near the 4400 block of East Agave. Between 6 p.m. May 18 and 6 a.m. May 19 a license plate was stolen from 2010 Toyota Corolla.

• On May 19 at 12:46 p.m. police took a report of a natural death near the 3200 block of East Chandler Boulevard. Officers received a call from an out-of-town relative who said they hadn’t heard from their relative living in Ahwatukee. Officers made entry into the apartment and found the 55-year-old resident deceased. All indications are it was a natural death.

• On May 19 at 12:40 a.m. near the 4700 block of East Warner Road police recovered a vehicle taken from another jurisdiction. A 1994 Honda Accord was recovered in parking lot.

• On May 19 at 4 a.m. police took a report of an aggravated assault near the 1400 block of East Chandler Boulevard. A juvenile male had an BB-gun pistol and pointed it at other juveniles who thought it was a real gun. Police were called and he was arrested.

• On May 19 at approximately 4 a.m. police responded an armed robbery near the 4400 block of East Ray Road. Unknown suspects pointed a hand gun at a victim and demanded money. The robber received an unknown amount of cash and fled on foot.

• On May 20 at 9:10 p.m. police took a report of an aggravated assault near the 15400 block of South 24th Street. The victim claimed someone had attempted to run over them on sidewalk while they were walking on East Mountain Sky Boulevard. The victim and suspect knew each other.

7. On May 21 at 3:20 a.m. police took a report of a domestic violence incident near the 12800 block of South 46th Street. The suspect, who was known but fled prior to police arrival, broke vehicle windows and committed assault by punching their brother.

• On May 22 at 6 a.m. police arrested a man near the 11000 block of South 51st Street. An adult male was arrested for domestic violence criminal damage and outstanding warrants.


There are several sets of eyes on a baseball game and what they see can be just as varying as the batting stances in a nine-man lineup.


AZPASS (Arizona People Acting for a Safer Society) would like to respond to Bill Richardson (“Limiting magazine capacity: Let’s try it!,” AFN, April 28) who seems to want to only confuse the discussion, and to prevent the rest of us from reaching a reasonable consensus on sensible gun regulation.


Let me add a few points in support of Don Kennedy’s May 15 AFN guest commentary (“Why the resistance to background checks and why the need for semi-automatics?”).

Humanity's home planet hardly merits the name-check in "After Earth," M. Night Shyamalan's sci-fi survival tale whose shipwreck action could (with the exception of a scene where our hero scrawls a crude map over Lascaux-like cave paintings) take place on any old life-supporting globe in the cosmos. The disappointingly generic film, which strands a father and son (Will and Jaden Smith) on Earth a thousand years after a planet-wide evacuation, will leave genre audiences pining for the more Terra-centric conceits of "Oblivion," not to mention countless other future-set films that find novelty in making familiar surroundings threatening. Will Smith's presence, not just as co-star but as originator of the story, seems likely to carry box office receipts beyond the benchmark of Shyamalan's previous picture, the wretched "The Last Airbender," but those hoping for a franchise should navigate elsewhere.

Don Kennedy’s guest commentary in the May 15 AFN (“Why the resistance to background checks and why the need for semi-automatics?”) attempts to perpetuate various false assertions of the gun lobby. Let’s call him on a few:

Rock-star Ted Nugent has extravagant praise for National Rifle Association (NRA) Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre’s alleged patriotism. “LaPierre,” says Nugent, “resembles our forefathers who stood on Concord bridge and risked all to give birth to a truly free, independent America.”

Phoenix is great because of our strong communities where neighbors work together and take pride in the place they call home.

An anonymous donation is keeping the Phoenix gun buyback program going for one final Saturday, May 18.

There is no short answer to the question — one which is asked by almost every gun control advocate in the U.S.

Phoenix film makers Marcus A. Stricklin and Sandy Kim, of Future Legends Production, have been invited to the Cannes Short Film Corner for the production of their film, “The Last Dance,” working with children actors from Ahwatukee.

A new statewide survey suggests that if Arizonans were asked about it today, it's more likely that gay couples would be able to marry here.

I’d like to thank Bryan Brinkley (“Richardson’s arguments are absurd,” AFN May 3) for taking the time to respond to the “absurd” arguments in my many gun control articles.

When my wife and I tried to park in the designated visitor parking area at Sen. Jeff Flake’s Phoenix office recently, we were told by security to leave or our car would be towed. When we questioned this, as we were there to join with others to hold him accountable for his vote against universal background checks for gun purchases, we were told parking there was for office tenants only. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, security people began blocking all entrances to the parking lot with pick-up trucks and chains.

Responding to recent absurd arguments... speeding, stealing and insider trading are not rights guaranteed by the Constitution... the right to bear arms IS!

It’s not often art lovers get to see a work in progress let alone contribute to it, but Arizona Opera gives fans the opportunity to do just that this weekend when they present the first reading of “Riders of the Purple Sage” — an original opera based on Zane Grey’s western novel, set on the Arizona-Utah border.

In Bryan Brinkley’s letter to the editor (“Richardson’s arguments are absurd,” AFN, May 3) he indicates that he is a man of the law. Then let him try this one on: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Washington • Sen. Jeff Flake’s vote against expanded background checks on gun sales earlier this month caused his approval ratings to drop, making him one of the “most unpopular” U.S. senators, a new poll says.