From the mailbag

Sir, last week, you wrote that John McCain and Barack Obama are speaking about terrorism, however, they are not talking about the issue of gang violence, even though it, too, is a form of terrorism.

 

The reason is because international terrorism is a federal issue, while local gang violence is generally a local issue.

There are some aspects of gangs which elicit federal concerns, such as inter-state drug trafficking, et al, but generally, gang violence is a local issue.

 

I know that many Americans want Presidential candidates to address every issue which affects their lives, but the truth is, not every issue which affects our lives is a federal issue.

 

For instance, many Americans want to hear what Presidential candidates have to say about "education."

However, education is a local issue.

 

Incidentally, I must mention that the city of Los Angeles makes it difficult to fight gang violence, with all of its laws against checking for citizenship status, et al.

Also, many "community provacateurs"---er, I mean, "community activists"---actually come to the defense of gang members with Al Sharpton-like pronouncements that the police are "harrassing" young men of color who "just happen" to be congregating on street corners, taking over local parks, et al.

Fact is, gangs in LA county are overwhelmingly made up of non-caucasian people.

Therefore, when these "community activists" use demogoguery to turn the legitimate efforts of the police into a cynical race issue, it makes it difficult to combat gangs.

 

And then, those same "community activists" will have the nerve to turn around and say that the police are not doing anything to fight gangs.

 

By the way, there's a real problem of graffiti in the San Gabriel Valley.

Since you have an influential voice, maybe you can recommend that people in the community volunteer to clean up graffiti as a way of taking back their neighborhoods.

 

A lot of high school age kids are always looking for extra-cirricular/volunteer opportunities to put on their college applications.

I think that cleaning up graffiti would be an excellent addition to any college application.

Maybe that's something you can recommend in a future column.