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As Ed Hardin readily admits in his column: Hunters are a dying breed ("Let the hunt begin," Sports, Oct. 14). So why continue to throw good column space after bad?

The number of hunters in this country has shrunk to less than 5 percent because most people no longer find it acceptable to kill animals for fun. Thousands of men who as kids were taught hunting is the manly thing to do have traded in this misguided "tradition" for wholesome family activities like hiking, biking and rock climbing.

Society now knows that the relatively few die-hards clinging to their weapons like babies to their blankies are over-compensating, personifying the statement of psychiatrist Maurice Linden that "these men become over-attached to these guns, which become the external embodiment of the vigor and masculine aggressiveness they lack in themselves."

Today, more and more newspapers are realizing that it's socially senseless and fiscally foolish to devote lengthy column space to a dying blood sport. It's time that Hardin stumbled out of the woods to join mainstream America. If Hardin won't ditch hunting, his publishers should ditch him.

Amy Mannix Morganton

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