Letters to the Editor

Declining Maintenance

I am not one to complain or write letters but there comes a time when it is totally necessary.

I have lived in Long Beach most all my life. Went to elementary, junior high and high school here in my beloved Long Beach. I have seen the good and the bad and unfortunately this letter has to do with the bad.

I just came from swimming at the Belmont Pool and had to park on the street along the wall in the stretch of angle parking. I was so taken aback by the smell of urine that I had to hold my breath until I could get from my car and to my car. It was so disgusting!

Our poor Long Beach has lost its way. Once there was pride in keeping streets in good condition, sidewalks clean, trash picked up, and curbs from weeds, etc. Now, you can’t even breathe the ocean air through the smell of urine.

I have observed Ocean Boulevard week after week, month after month and now it’s year after year with its decline in maintenance. Now, we are at the point where we can’t even breathe the air.

There is trash all along the curbs, and weeds and sand all along the sidewalk from the Belmont Pool to the Peninsula. This is a beach town and should be presented and appreciated with grooming and care. Where are our taxes going and why has this happened?

Is there another beach town along the coast of California that has such disregard in maintaining their city? It’s like a no care attitude! What city leaders do this? You would never see this happen in Seal Beach, Huntington Beach or even beaches north of us.

What an ugly reproach and rebuke this shows of our city leaders.

This doesn’t even touch on what has happened to our east side corridors. Coming off the freeways onto the 22/7th Street off ramp, Studebaker to 2nd Street, Second Street East to Seal Beach is horrendous as well. These are the entry points, the gateways into our city and it shows no pride for Long Beach whatsoever.

And don’t get me started on the horrible conditions of our streets.

Again, my question is “Where are our taxes going and why has this happened?”

If readers agree with me please take a few minutes to contact our City Council members and mayor.

Janis Opie

Bump Stocks

Long Beach residents will now have to live with legalized machine guns as the Supreme Court has struck down the Trump-era ban on bump stocks that can turn a semi-automatic AR-15 into a machine gun. Just think of the carnage this combination weapon could inflict on Long Beach’s numerous outdoor events.

Justice Thomas wrote the majority opinion that someone with a fast finger can replicate machine guns at 800 rpm. Thomas offered no proof to support his opinion, because there is none. The 6 to 3 vote was a resounding victory for the NRA and the patent holder of the bump stock – Jeremiah Cottle. More than one million AR15s have been sold and are eligible to be fitted with a bump stock, capable of a machine gun cycle rate.

Machine guns are measured by cycle rate, as expressed in rounds (shots per minute). The words cycle rate do not appear in Thomas’ opinion.

The court majority failed miserably by being ignorant of the cycle rate of a machine gun and the ludicrous assumption that some people can replicate it with their finger an 800-rpm rate. They should have upheld the ban, amended the Federal Firearm Act (FFA) rules, allowing registration of each owner with deep background checks.

There are over 500,000 machine guns registered to private citizens under the FFA, and not one registered FFA machine gun has been used in a mass shooting. If Congress applied the same FFA-rigid gun control rules to all gun purchases, America could stop the barbaric slaughter of our school children.

Just as the Thompson machine gun was the weapon of choice of the 1930s mob shootings, today the weapon of choice will be an AR-15 with a bump stock. How many more must die to prove that the Supreme Court has errored in favor of the NRA and the continuation of gun deaths.

Larry Boland