In regards to Steve Bader's U-Wire column about North Dakota's "Shoot the Burglar" bill (March 21), I haven't seen such completely, utterly ridiculous hyperbole in the pages of the Collegian in a long while. The bill Bader cites essentially removes penalties for people who shoot trespassers on their property, but to read Bader's column you'd think the bill made it a requirement for all of North Dakota's citizens to keep a constant vigil with a hair-trigger machine gun trained on their front doors, and shoot whoever opens it. He makes amazing arguments, such as suggesting that just getting the wrong address will end with someone getting "riddled with an AK-47 clip" because of the bill. Apparently, he thinks that the North Dakotans never learned such ancient, mysterious techniques as knocking on a door or checking the address. The degree to which he insults the intelligence of an entire state with this argument is really amazing.

I've been to the Dakotas, and from what I remember the people there are fairly reasonable, and I'm sure that they'd realize the difference between, say, a frat house where a party's going on and a private home where everybody's asleep. Anyone with half a brain (and this group apparently excludes Bader) should know that if you're unsure about an address at all, you knock on the door, instead of just barging in. I am also fairly certain that a majority of Dakotans aren't the trigger-happy nuts, just itching for an excuse to shoot people with impunity, that Bader seems to think they are.