Assembly Gun Vote

* On Jan. 16 I took 15 young people from our youth violence prevention program (Los Angeles Teens on Target) on their first visit to the State Capitol in Sacramento, for the meeting of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, chaired by Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills). We were there to let the committee know how important it is to ban the cheap handguns known as Saturday night specials. These kids know firsthand how easy it is to get cheap guns in their neighborhoods--as easy as getting school supplies. And they wanted their elected leaders to take a simple measure to reduce the availability of these guns.

Those who know politics were not surprised when the committee members rejected Assemblyman Louis Caldera’s (D-Los Angeles) bill to ban Saturday night specials. But our youths were devastated. When the vote was taken, they raised their voices; “We’re doing our work to solve problems in the community, how come you can’t help us stop the gun violence?” they called out.

Instead of listening, or even asking for silence, Boland accused the young people of threatening her and had the whole group thrown from the hearing room.

Now our kids know more than they wanted to about how politics work. They know that while we struggle daily to reduce violence in our streets, the politicians are doing very little to help us.

FIDEL VALENZUELA

Downey