Anti-Gang Injunction in Westminster

* Bravo to the city of Westminster (“Westminster Gang Gets the Word--In Writing,” July 11) for standing up to the Trece gang. It’s about time that the good citizens take our county, and our nation, back from the gang members, murderers, rapists, drug lords, carjackers, etc. and attempt, once again, to make the United States a safe place for its citizens.

I have always believed that we have gone too far in superseding the rights of the ordinary citizen in order to protect the rights of criminals, but this became very personal on April 14 of this year when my father and two other innocent people were murdered by a man on a shooting spree in Long Beach. I, for one, have had it.

As a member of the board of directors of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Orange County, a nonprofit organization that grants wishes to children suffering from life-threatening diseases, I can attest, based on the support that we receive from the community, that most people are good-natured. Those of us who are sick and tired of having our rights threatened by gang members and other troublemakers vastly outnumber the criminals and the civil libertarians combined.

Protecting the criminals and endangering the ordinary citizens is a far cry from what the writers of our Constitution had in mind. The Constitution was written to give each person the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-- not to provide the right to murder, intimidate, violate the bodies of others, steal, and destroy property. Our founding fathers would turn over in their graves if they could see the problems in our society that have been allowed to spread like a cancer as a result of an overly literal interpretation of our Constitution.

Other cities, take note: use Westminster as an example and let’s start cleaning up Orange County.

MARLENE ECKERT

Orange