Mailbag: Readers get in line behind Apodaca on gun ownership

I read with great interest Patrice Apodaca’s June 7 column, “We must find effective answers to gun violence” (Daily Pilot, June 11).

Part of what she wrote really hit home with me. “We’re not safe. Not on the streets or in our workplaces; not at a mall or a party, a hair salon or a concert, a dance studio or a church or a theater.”

In recent weeks, President Biden has said he’s done everything he can to end gun violence, that it’s up to Congress to come up with new, common-sense gun safety laws. Respectfully, I disagree.

The president needs to take a page out of Jimmy Carter’s playbook and convene a gun summit at Camp David just like Carter did with Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin in 1978.

Back then, it took nearly two weeks to come up with a Middle East peace agreement. Today, with representatives from the National Rifle Assn., 2nd Amendment, law enforcement and grieving families in attendance, I’m guessing they could come up with three or four gun safety initiatives in a matter of days.

With those initiatives in place, everyone involved in the Camp David gun summit would agree to hold hands and lobby reluctant lawmakers in Congress to switch their no votes on new gun safety laws to yes.

I agree with Apodaca. “When a small but unduly powerful group of people cling to the logic-defying position that the answer to gun violence is more guns, we must acknowledge that this aspect of our culture has gone terribly wrong.”

Denny Freidenrich
Laguna Beach

The time for equivocation is long past for all of us. The Republican Party leaders are the main reason that regulation of firearms in any meaningful form does not happen. We cannot tiptoe around the issue and expect change to occur. Public pressure is the only weapon we seem to have to push Republican leaders from inaction to action. The polls up to this point have failed. Republicans, especially in red states, are still elected to Congress. Most media, whether hard news or opinion pieces, tend to soft-pedal around the issue. Patrice Apodaca is no exception. In her column, there are no references to Republican leaders, including her closing sentence: “More anguish is certain if our leaders continue to fail.” It’s bad enough that most Republicans use every media opportunity to bad-mouth the opposition, most often with half-truths and lies, and that some media promote a lie a minute, but even mainstream news doesn’t communicate the hard truth: The Republican Party’s control belongs to a twice-impeached man who lies incessantly, is twice-indicted on suspicion of felonies, and spends every waking moment dividing our country. These are truths voters need to vote Republican leaders out of office. Republican leaders are the main contributors to fostering public shooting galleries that Apodaca mentions.

Jim Hoover
Huntington Beach

H.B. council majority’s decisions draw criticism

Several letter writers, myself included, have railed against the authoritarian tendencies of the Huntington Beach City Council majority and concerns about transparency and ethics in their decision-making.

We have already seen a civic giveaway of $7.4 million to Kevin Elliot, and his Code Four outfit (operator of the Pacific Airshow). Much of the settlement agreement flew under the radar, and the details are still under wraps (Ocean View School District vice president sues Huntington Beach over Pacific Airshow settlement, Daily Pilot, June 14). Talk about lack of transparency! We only have the assertion of City Atty. Michael Gates that such confidentiality needs to be preserved. According to an article in Voice of OC, council members Dan Kalmick, Natalie Moser, and Rhonda Bolton think otherwise. Basically an untrustworthy conservative cabal is saying “Trust us!” on rampant cronyism. The citizenry should be more demanding of the facts. After all, it’s our money.

Now comes the latest authoritarian insult to our civic democracy. An agenda item (No. 26) proposed by Councilman Pat Burns for the June 6 City Council meeting would allow Mayor Tony Strickland to form a charter review ad hoc council committee for the purpose of making proposed charter revisions. This partisan power grab would include the appointment of two other council members of the mayor’s choosing to collude with the city attorney in doubtlessly attacking our civic norms further.

As Councilwoman Bolton was quoted in the Voice of OC article about the air show deal, “It’s part of this pattern of irresponsible decision-making. You’re going to see more of those because that’s just how these guys roll.” Now, we have seen more.

It’s amazing how much damage has already occurred in just the first six months of this right-wing regime. Will the hard-won reputation of Surf City be further washed away in this reactionary riptide? It’s time to raise the red flag at the lifeguard stand.

Tim Geddes
Huntington Beach