After the recent shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., President Barack Obama indicated those on the no-fly list could still purchase firearms. There are several ways names can appear on that list, one being a mistake. We must be careful restricting rights just because names appear on a list.
In the 1930s, Adolph Hitler had a list of names he used to round up and eradicate millions of Jews. In the late '40s and early '50s, lives were changed because a senator accused or insinuated that someone was a communist on another list.
We are a country of laws. Before a person can be striped of their rights they must be found guilty of a crime or be judged in a court of law by due process to be of such character that it warrants the restriction of those rights. This is as it should be.
The violence in the world is disheartening. Some of the violence here is because we as a people have the greatest amount of freedom of any people of the world. Those freedoms have sprouted from the tree of liberty planted by our Founding Fathers. As Ben Franklin is credited with saying, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
We must be very careful we do not trade freedom for safety.
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Dale Owens
Elgin
