LTE: Incident exaggerated

March 29, 2005
Dayton Daily News

Re "Bullet-riddled block pleads for help," March 14:

Only a city boy writer for the Dayton Daily News could:

• Make a .22 rifle into an automatic weapon.
• Pretend that school buses are targets.
• Turn one .22 slug into a bullet-riddled neighborhood.
• Make a .22 hole in a window look a foot wide.
• Ignore countless shootings in Dayton, but denigrate Waynesville country folk.

When did a broken window in Dayton last make front-page news? Has the DDN's anti-gun stance made Dayton safer?

I have to admit, the reporter's writing is colorful. The editor of this foolish yellow journalism had to know what a crock he was stirring. We dumb country folks know hot-pink Big Brother socialism when we read it.

I have been a target shooter with a good backup: a hill 80 feet high. I found that my bullets went underground, skipped along the top of some shallow shale rock, re-emerged at a high angle, and went over the hilltop. The day I found out, I complained to the neighbor on the other side of the hill that I could hear his ricochets going over my head. He told me that mine did the same thing to him. We readjusted our shooting. We are still friends. Nobody was a criminal.

We didn't need a posse, the sheriff, the school superintendent, and the Dayton Daily News to fix the problem.

Chuck Layton
Wayne Twp.