Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor:

Especially since recent mass shootings, there have been constant calls that government “do something.” One proposal after each such tragedy is “red flag laws.”

In America, “due process” is a most important right. Red flag laws often allow a judge to issue an order to confiscate guns from someone just on the suspicion he might commit a crime. That takes away the right to face your accuser, the right to due process, and the right to protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Red flag laws could be the claims of an angry spouse or lover, jealous co-worker, or disgruntled neighbor. All it might take is for someone to make a convincing argument that you are a danger to yourself or others.

In a rush to judgment about Japanese Americans

after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order to forcibly remove more than 110,000 of them from their homes and into “internment” (concentration) camps.(Their offense? They were Japanese Americans accused of exaggerated claims of sabotage.)

Thomas Jefferson said: “It is in the natural course of events that liberty recedes and government grows.” In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court voted unanimously (9-0) that law enforcement taking guns without a warrant is unconstitutional.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the unanimous opinion: “The very core of the Fourth Amendment is the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable search and seizure.”

Duane Stahl, Valley City, ND