It turns out, nation’s founders got it right

First published: Sunday, November 4, 2007

An Oct. 26 letter writer suggested limiting the Second Amendment to 18th-century firearms. What an interesting idea.

I’m sure she would also be in favor of limiting free speech to 18th-century forms of communication, and she certainly must oppose the requirement for agents of the government to obtain warrants in order to listen in on telephone conversations or intercept other forms of electronic correspondence.

After all, the telegraph was not invented until the 1840s, more than 50 years after the Fourth Amendment was written.

Certainly, our Founding Fathers wouldn’t be so “daft,” as the writer suggests, to have given us the First and Fourth Amendments if they could have foreseen the advent of the World Wide Web and the BlackBerry.

Our Founding Fathers, however, were not daft. They had experienced life under an oppressive government and they understood quite well that in order for a people to be truly free, they need a variety of protections, including free speech, the ability to redress grievances (I’d like to ask our founding fathers about McCain-Feingold), freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and the ability to defend themselves against tyrants, both foreign and domestic.

Why not have one standard of interpretation for the entire Bill of Rights? Additionally, let’s not be in such a hurry to give up our rights, even those we may not be particularly interested in exercising.

As Benjamin Franklin so eloquently said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

CARL KOCHERSBERGER

Kinderhook

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !