HomeMy WebLinkAbout2_17_2021_open session_General Comment_Lara, Andy_rec'd too late for meeting2-17-2021
Dear San Bernardino City Council:
I want to commend the city on efforts to reduce gun violence in the city, especially with the gun
buy-back program.
However, the city continues to allow Crossroads of the West Gun Shows to take place at the
National Orange Show, including one coming up on February 27 and 28, 2021. Despite repeated
calls for cancelling of these events, it is unfathomable that a city that uses gift cards to take
guns off the streets, is also allowing them to continue to be sold and traded at giant pageants
three times a year. It is also unacceptable that advertisements for the gun shows have
historically appeared at numerous OmniTrans bus stops across the city long before and
remained installed long after the event has passed. For the Nov 2020 event, for example, a bus
stop near E street and Orange Show Road still has the ad up, which is sad and disturbing.
Senate Bill 264, currently working its way up the state legislature, would ban gun sales and
shows on all state-owned property and fairgrounds in California. Do you think gun shows at the
National Orange Show would in the future be prohibited? Is the end of gun shows at the
Orange Show Fairgrounds in sight?
The city of San Bernardino should not be associated with the selling and promotion of firearms
and ammunition. Let’s not forget that state-owned properties are supported by taxpayer
dollars, so they also must pay for the trauma of firearm violence in our communities.
Has the city asked important questions, like why gun violence occurs, instead of: who has guns?
And do you need a gift card?
Could it be San Bernardino’s lack of jobs, crumbling infrastructure, food deserts, lack of
adequate affordable housing, lack of arts and decent education that leads to crime?
Please use your powers of lawmaking and ordinance drawing for prevention, not a tragically
short-changed VISA gift card.
The fact that we continue to allow gun shows at our city’s biggest venue, and then use city
funds to buy back guns, is a terrible irony. Maybe the state can again guide our moral compass,
since we cannot do so on our own.
Andy Lara