New Year’s Gunfire

I couldn’t believe my ears on New Year’s Eve. I thought I was in Panama or Beirut. Every New Year’s Eve it gets worse and worse. I have never heard such a cacophony of small arms, pistols, assault rifles, AK-47s and Uzis.

And all this just two blocks from the Santa Ana police station on Ross Street. And not just at midnight, but from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. Some must have been celebrating New Year’s for Arizona and then Hawaii.

It goes like this. First a poor dude gets out there with his six-shooter and fires off a quick six. Everybody counts. Then the guys with the larger caliber pistols say, “Watch this,” and fire off a quick six. The the guy with the assault rifle says, “I can beat that,” and fires off a quick 10 rounds. Then the guy with the AK-47 says, “I can beat that,” and fires off a quick 15. Then the impatient Uzi owner beats everyone with his awesome firepower.

I heard police sirens, but it becomes a cat-and-mouse game. While the police are in one section of the neighborhood, the hooligans fire from a block away. The police move out, and the clowns come out and fire into the air again. The police go back and forth.

The Santa Ana City Council is the most permissive City Council we have ever had. They allow all sorts of evil to go on in this city. If the machine-gun and small-arms fire on New Year’s Eve had happened 20 years ago in the city, there would have been mass arrests. It would not have been tolerated.

JON TURNER

Santa Ana