I read the article in the Bakersfield Californian about the young man who was shot for giving the "wrong" response to the question, "Watts up?"    I imagine he thought they asked, "What's up" and was trying to be friendly by returning their question.  I have also read most of the blog comments regarding that senseless killing on bakersfield.com.

Today, I read about a twelve-year-old girl who was shot in the ankle as she sat outside her apartment by a gang member who yelled a challenge to someone sitting near her.

A gang member was found guilty of shooting a man while he was sleeping in the back seat of a car at a gas station in the southeast.  He wasn't even a resident of Bakersfield and was on his way to Las Vegas to get married.  His mistake?  He was wearing a shirt in the color of a rival gang.

A young man is gunned down in his van as he is leaving for work.  The reason he was riddled with bullets?  He lived on the wrong side of Union avenue and was "suspected" of being in the "wrong" gang.

A high school senior from Arizona was visiting family in Los Angeles.  He was sitting on a bus bench waiting to go downtown and see the city.  A car drove up and the passenger unloaded a 9 mm clip into the young man's chest.  What had he done to deserve such a cruel and painful demise?  He was wearing a "Raiders" jacket - the color and sign of a rival gang.

I could go on with more examples but I don't need to - you know what is happening as well as I do.  Gangs are taking our lifestyle away.  People say that they are afraid to say anything to someone who even looks like they might be in a gang.  Children in certain neighborhoods can no longer play in parks or even in their own yards.  Gangbangers, who prefer a nocturnal lifestyle, crank rap music up in the middle of the night and the residents they intentionally disturb are too afraid to call police.  They label private property with spray cans claiming territory and bragging of crimes.  They control our prisons and prevent prosecution by threatening witnesses.

EACH and EVERY victim of a gang-related crime (or their relatives if the victim has been killed) should sue the United States Government.  We the people were promised that the government would "provide for the common defense" and "insure domestic tranquillity."  As far as gangs are concerned, the government has provided neither.

If we were not wasting our resources and money in Iraq, the government could spend that money and devote those resources to eradicating the gangs.  Since it choses not to, then it is up to the individual citizen by a process of suing through the courts to force our government to take action with sufficient strength to remove the threat of street gangs.  Our local police can't do it alone.  Only with the federal government's intervention can we restore a lifestyle in which children can play without fear, people can go about their daily lives without intimidation and a young man can respond to the question, "What's up" without losing his life.