Here We Go Again: Arizona Gun Rampages

From the “Just when you thought it was safe to put Arizona out of your mind re: mass murders” file comes this news item, courtesy of Reuters:

A man apparently angry over a divorce case went on a shooting spree in Yuma, Arizona, on Thursday, killing five people and wounding another before taking his own life, the mayor said.

One of the dead was identified as an attorney who was shot at his Yuma law office, and some of the other victims were friends and relatives of the gunman, Mayor Alan Krieger told Reuters by telephone.

As these things go, early details are sketchy at best (meaning just about everything we ‘know’ now could prove to be wrong later). Apparently, this was a movable feast of fear, starting in downtown Yuma around 9AM, and lasting a couple of hours, across the city.

Carey Hal Dyess, 73, of Yuma killed one person in Yuma and three people in Yuma County before shooting himself, according to a press release from the Yuma Police Department. Dyess’ body was found near Blaisdell and Highway 95 at 11:30 a.m. by Yuma County Sheriff’s deputies, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Krieger said the gunman’s motive was not entirely clear but that he was believed to be upset over a divorce case.

Well, DUH. Let’s see – we’ll call this “recipe for disaster” – mix one irate ex-husband who’s presumably taking a beating from his ex in court, add in an attorney that is either “just doing his job” (from the wife’s POV) or “screwing me over royally (from the husband’s) add in a temper and some control issues (we don’t know, but sounds like this might could be one of the causes for the divorce, no?) and add in a gun. Voilá! Serves six.

I don’t mean to make light of this tragedy, but if someone’s gonna go all Falling Down on the populace, I wish they’d take the Aggie way out and start with themselves. Think of the savings if we could take the “murder” out of “murder-suicide.”

The authorities locked down city hall, the courthouse, and a couple of nearby elementary schools. That’s swell, and I presume it’s a prudent thing to do. (Not my place to say.) But isn’t it kinda like locking the barn door after the horses have gotten loose? I’ll be interested to learn, as the details become available, how this guy could apparently go around systematically taking out an attorney, his relatives and friends, and then himself, without running into any resistance by the police. I’m NOT saying the police did anything wrong – or failed to protect the public as best they can. I’d just like to hear the details and find out how it went down.

For those of you wondering what the takeaway is on this, I’ve got a couple of early results:

• Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
• Life can be senseless, sometimes.
• In order for the majority of us to have the right and the means to defend ourselves, sometimes there can be collateral damages. That this can happen is the price we pay for being able to exercise our second amendment rights.
• The left is gonna go nuts over this, and try to use this tragedy (again) to argue for more restrictive gun laws.
• Just because Arizona has liberal gun laws doesn’t mean everybody walks around packin’ heat. If they did, it’s far more likely this idiot would have been stopped before he stopped himself.
• For those that point up the mental illness angle, how do you propose that we effectively screen anybody and know, in advance, that they are likely to commit a gun crime?

That’s all we’ve got so far. More details as we get ’em.