I just finished reading your article, "OAKDALE: Workers threatened, police say," and I feel obligated to comment on your inclusion of a quote that negatively compares the suspect's basement to the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons.
Upfront I will tell you that I have played Dungeons and Dragons for twenty years, and I have seen the game suffer much unfair treatment by the press. Despite (and perhaps in part because of) my experience with Dungeons and Dragons, I became interested in literature and writing, so much so that I became a college English teacher seven years ago.
I have to question why you would choose to include Hutton's apparently off-the-cuff remark about Dungeons and Dragons, especially because it is not mentioned anywhere in the article that the suspect was a player. Being somewhat jaded about the past treatment of D&D in newspapers and on television, I have to assume that it was done for the shock value and/or name recognition.
It is a faulty comparison, however, and for more reasons than just the fact that the suspect had no experience with the game. I don't have a special room in my house where I stockpile small arms and ammunitions. In fact, in my twenty year experience I have never met any D&D players who have had such a room.
In addition, what exactly is the relationship between automatic weapons and Dungeons and Dragons? The game is set in a fantasy world, much like the popular Lord of the Rings movie that is a box-office hit right now. The knives and martial arts weapons might help evoke such an image, but you can also find such weapons in any number of martial arts and action movies. By the way, the odd three-bladed throwing weapon that the police found is probably a hunga munga, an African weapon that I found out about, not by playing Dungeons and Dragons, but by watching the popular TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I am not particularly angry or outraged by your article. Like I said before, it's typical of the treatment the game has received since its creation. I still feel that it is an unfair and damaging comparison, and I ask you to reconsider making the same comparison in the future.
Thank you for your time.