Biathletes on target

Your article in the Sports section, (BDN 10 July) on Maine’s hosting the world biathlon championship for juniors is welcome news.

However, your writers appear to be just a tad anti-gun when nowhere in the article on a two-sport competition, skiing and rifle shooting as practiced in the Olympic Games, is it mentioned that, indeed, shooting a gun is the second half of the competition. We witnessed this in past Winter Olympics, such as at Salt Lake City, but apparently we will not in the next games if your paper has a say in it.

Competitive marksmanship is a clean and accident-free game, training kids in safe and proper, non-threatening use of firearms. I worked as a coach with kids from the ’30s to the ’90s, and I will wager a month’s retirement income that youngsters who participated in formal shooting programs, such as NRA’s and 4H’s and summer camps and school programs, will not be found among the bodies occupying cells in state and federal prisons. Your article was seriously remiss in failing to mention this half of the biathlon sport, apparently deliberately due to obvious writer bias. That is not very admirable, particularly when allowed to pass by editors.

Frank Lewis

Machias