Guns, video games and coal in today’s letters to the editor.

Pick of the day: Free not to believe?

As a public relations and advertising executive and former journalist, I owe my career to the First Amendment. Imagine my displeasure when reading about two vandalized billboards (“Second atheist billboard defaced in Roanoke area,” Dec. 29).

Those who did this help to reveal some religious hypocrisy. Damaging someone’s property is akin to “thou shalt not steal,” and clearly the vandals don’t believe in that tenet. Nor do they believe in the whole “do unto others” thing.

And they seem to believe in free expression — as long as the views are theirs, and others are suppressed. This kind of behavior we can expect in a theocracy like Iran, not in a free and open-minded democracy.

THOMAS BECHER

ROANOKE