In response to “Mayor Expresses View on Gun Control Debate,” published on March 29.
Last week’s Malibu Times made minor hay out of Mayor Rick Mullen’s comments on gun control without fairly putting it in context. If one were not at that meeting, a conclusion could be drawn that Mullen somehow felt compelled to use the bully pulpit to place his personal views in the public forum of debate on this highly contentious topic.
But the perception that your shoddy journalism gave could not have been further from the truth. In fact, the only grandstanding at the meeting was orchestrated by Council Member Laura Rosenthal, who invited an obviously talented student at Malibu High to re-read rapper In-Q’s poem written after the Sandy Hook massacre. His reading was dynamic, inspired and impassioned. It was also bereft of facts, used highly cherry-picked data to reach meaningless conclusions and demonized all opposing views on the subject.
I was in the audience that night. All council members commented directly to the student regarding his passion. Mullen did exactly the same. No more, no less. An honest student of American history would have found nothing wrong in his comments, which seemed to be based on the historical context of the second amendment, and the suggestion that a circumspect approach to the issue might not be a bad thing for an 18-year-old to apply to such a hot-button issue (or any topic, for that matter). His Warsaw analogy, to me, was a bit of a stretch, but it was timely to the moment, so I get it.
I am not here to weigh in on the issue at hand, nor am I going to attempt to read the mayor’s mind.
I am writing to bust you on your crap coverage of this one particular item.
And to express my disappointment at the adults in the audience who felt compelled to hiss during his remarks.
Lester Tobias