As the gun debate stirs and emotions rise higher and higher, we tend to leave ration and logic out of the subsequent efforts to address what is an important public issue. Emotionally charged solutions seldom fix anything. They simply make a lot of people feel like something positive is being done but they truly accomplish nothing. And marching out victims to use as props for your initiative is a shameless political ploy. Politicians are great at using emotional issues to push their pet plans. Most of the efforts currently in flight to answer the recent tragedies in Colorado, Arizona, Connecticut (all very liberal enclaves I might add) are labeled as “Gun Safety” and “Gun Violence” initiatives. Looking at those terms, who is not for Gun Safety? And who is not for ending Gun Violence?

As we survey the panoply of absurd ideas our legislators, both state and national, face from special interest groups these days, we have to wonder what has become of that rare commodity: common sense.

Riveting, intelligent and a masterclass in acting, “Beyond the Hills” is likely to be the best film you’ll see this spring or maybe even this year.

Sorry, but Nancy Pelosi is wrong. We do have a spending problem and the heart of the matter is our inability to control medical costs. Spending on health care now consumes an astonishing 18 percent of our total economic output. Rising Medicare and Medicaid costs are the main drivers of our national debt crisis. Yet health care costs continue to shoot up relentlessly.

The tale of two Americas. We have the America which is comfortable with the collective government control of production through socialism or communism, plus all of the misery which goes with collectivism. On the other hand, we have the America which wants liberty for the individual to control the means of production and all of the benefits which derive from the spirit of the free man.

Forty nonprofit representatives recently discussed tax law amendments and education on fraud and embezzlement, which targeted private organizations in 2012, according to a BeachFleischman PC shareholder.

WASHINGTON — Side by side, leading Democratic and Republican senators pledged Monday to propel far-reaching immigration legislation through the Senate by summer providing a possible path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people now in the U.S. illegally.

I am a registered Republican and I vote in every election. I have an MBA from Arizona State University and I am retired from AT&T after a career of 32 years. I have been married for 49 years, have two grown children and three granddaughters with a fourth one due later this month.

I’d like to both agree (on one view) and take issue with Susan Stamper-Brown’s Guest Commentary of Aug. 3 (“The Futility of Gun Control”). I find several of her views to be very closed-minded and illogical, as I do those of many people who advocate no attempt at sensible gun control.

In the Aug. 3 AFN, Susan Stamper-Smith provided us with the normal National Rifle Association (NRA) talking points on the futility of gun control, as a response to the horrific massacre in Colorado (“The futility of gun control”). Her basic assertions are that mad killers will always find the way to kill (“If every last gun was shipped across our borders fast and furiously, murderers would still find a way to kill”), and that if only people in the Aurora movie theater were packing heat a tragedy could have been minimized.

Two organizations that promote "family values'' and nearly a dozen other states are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to let Arizona deny health care and other benefits to the domestic partners of its gay employees.

Dirty political campaigns are as old as the Founding Fathers.

Legalization of something does not necessarily make it a good idea. It was once legal to own a slave. Democrats who voted against abolishing slavery in 1864, have been doing their part ever since to enslave Americans to one social program or another. Obamacare is just the latest example.

The part of Arizona where most of the Valley’s water comes from recorded one of the driest winters on record, making it the second parched winter in a row.

The nation's high court on Monday cleared the way for Arizona to force state and local police to check the immigration status of those they have stopped.

In “Just stating the facts,” (AFN, May 11) C.W. Griffin exposes himself as a gullible victim of lying Democrat propaganda, totally unconfused by readily available facts.

In “Just stating the facts,” (AFN, May 11) C.W. Griffin exposes himself as a gullible victim of lying Democrat propaganda, totally unconfused by readily available facts.

Well folks, the campaign has fully begun, launched by female drama; one woman publicly attacking another. However, it didn’t turn out quite the way Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen apparently hoped. Some say she got her talking orders directly from the White House when she attacked Ann Romney Wednesday night on CNN. But my guess is she didn’t need directions, she seemed comfortable in her strident remarks.

A Senate panel voted Monday to recommend confirmation of an outspoken and often controversial political blogger and lobbyist to the state Board of Regents.

Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed an expansion of a program to use state funds to send children to private schools, saying the move goes too far.

Perhaps one of the first lessons learned in college reserve officer training from the study of military history is that troops are reticent to take up arms. Studies show that about a third of trained infantry soldiers facing the enemy in a conventional battlefield environment will actually point their weapons at an identified enemy and pull the trigger. Not so with field artillerymen. Usually they don’t see the enemy nor the huge explosions where their shells impact.

Recovery from addiction can be complicated for many reasons, grief being one of them. Grief is not reserved for loss of life; we experience grief when experiencing major life changes including relationships with alcohol and drugs.

PHOENIX — Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney swept Arizona's GOP primary with support from a broad cross section of voters who said they were focused on the economy, not immigration or the equally divisive issue of immigration.