Lana Whited at Roanoke.Com

At times, I think nobody reads this column but my friends and family.

But a glance into my mail bag tells me I'm wrong.

After my column about the Million Mom March (May 20), I received a flurry of e-mail, all from men who were outraged that I would consider banning handguns or repealing the Second Amendment. It's a strong viewpoint, and I expected response.

But I wasn't prepared for the tone of my correspondents. With the exception of one message, my e-mail had a tone which was the cyberspace equivalent of waving a fist in my face.

One writer suggested that I "move to a place that doesn't allow guns," and another told me to "get off the farm" or get a gun, which, he said, I might find useful on the farm. I was told that if I'm sincere about fighting crime, I "and the Million Moms [should] go join hands and walk through the North Carolina mountains and try to find Eric Rudolph."

My arguments were labeled "a feel-good agenda" (I confess that the idea of a world without guns does make me feel good.) One writer also said I and "all the little democrats don't keep the facts straight," while "the NRA knows the facts." (I wonder if he means the fact that a gun in a house is 11 times more likely to hurt someone than to protect them.)

Another correspondent attributed to me more actual power than I have, telling me "You will never ban all guns." Believe me, I never planned to do it myself. (I thought that was my whole point.) An e-mail arrived on Memorial Day, encouraging me to "ask a veteran how gun control affected his life." (I could ask my dad, a WWII vet who also supports gun control.)

I started to feel uneasy when a guy wrote me, "How long does it take a policeman to get to your house if you can call 911, if they are not busy with another emergency?" I keep telling myself this man was trying to tell me I need a gun, not planning to give me an opportunity to use it.

Then on the "Today" show Thursday morning, I heard Rosie O'Donnell say her young children have received death threats since she emceed the Million Mom March. Suddenly, I wondered if I should ask the phone company to leave my street listing out of the directory.

All but one of my correspondents told me they grew up hunting and claimed to derive their values from it. Well, guys, I think Rosie and I are feeling a little like does caught in your scope. You don't seem to realize that I'm no more scared of the criminals than I am of you. Your organization is looking more and more like a terrorist group, and you need to think long and hard about why regulating guns scares you so much that you're willing to frighten innocent people.

A tone similar to my pro-gun mail appeared in a message from Doug, who is upset with The Roanoke Times' coverage of Earl Bramblett's case. (Bramblett was sentenced to death for the murders of four members of a Vinton family.) Doug responded to a column in which I took Texas Gov. George W. Bush to task for his state's handling of capital cases (March 11).

His criticisms of The Roanoke Times aside, Doug's advice for me was, "come down off your high horse and look at something that is local and totally skewed . . . . First get the beam out of Virginia's eye before you start pointing out the mote in the eyes of Texas." (I just hope he doesn't expect me to remove that "mote" all by myself.)

Fortunately, there's been a lot of positive mail as well.

By far, the column that drew the most response was my defense of the Harry Potter books (Feb. 12) . One children's book author, tired of hearing "maybe you'll be able to write adult books someday," told me my indictment of New York Times columnist William Safire was "balm" for her. Others echoed the sentiment. Another woman said children's books "are far MORE important" than what adults read, because children's values are still being formed. (I find myself wishing my Million Mom March correspondents had spent more time with books and less with guns.)

A proud grandfather in Huddleston wrote to say his grandson stayed up late nights reading about Harry Potter. On the young man's recommendation, the grandparents had read all three books. But my favorite comment about the Harry Potter column was made by my 6-year-old friend Max, who, after his mom read him my response to Safire, said, "Once he sees this on the computer, he's gonna cry like a baby."

Another enjoyable piece of mail came from Ray East, a retired artist with the NBC News and Television Division. East assured me he answered perfectly on my women-in-the-media quiz (March 18) and suggested that I should have included NBC United Nations Correspondent Pauline Frederick and CBS Congressional reporter Nancy Dickerson. Frederick was the only female network reporter in the 1940s and the first woman to host a presidential debate, in 1976. Dickerson was the first woman to report from the floor of the U.S. Senate and a national convention. I should have included them.

I received more good nominations from Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter Rex Bowman, who won the quiz contest. Bowman suggested Martha Gelhorn and Marguerite Higgins. Gelhorn, Bowman said, is "the greatest unknown-to-the-public American journalist of the 20th century," her career spanning events "from the Spanish Civil War to the Reagan Revolution." Higgins regularly scooped The New York Times in her reporting on the Korean War for the rival Herald-Tribune and won the 1951 Pulitzer prize for international reporting.

Here are a few other messages I was happy to get. My student Ann e-mailed to say she was excited I'd written about our class's discussion of Ferrum's Spring Fling t-shirt logo in "A mountain or a mole hill?" (April 22). Toward the end of the semester, another student, Mandy, e-mailed to say, "Do any of your students ever tell you 'good job'? Good job, Dr. Whited. Your article was SWEET!" (There is no praise like the praise of one's students.)

In February, a Roanoke reader sent a nice note about my column "Judging the Roanoke Times by its cover," in which I took the newspaper to task for the number of front-page features. The writer said she cancelled her subscription after a picture of a butchered hog appeared on Page 1. When she wrote an editor to complain that "some pretty important things [were] happening in the world," the editor said there was a lot of local interest in hog-butchering season (her reply: "As opposed to, say, Bosnia?")

Since I began this column last October, I have also been received an invitation to a local Poetry Slam (I've attended before and hope to return) and several e-mails from my Emory & Henry classmates who found me on the Web.

Finally, my friend Jeff writes occasionally to set me straight on financial issues, which he has a better head for than I. He helped explain difficulties in calculating the value of the AOL Time-Warner merger (Jan. 29), and after my column on why the Internet should be taxed (April 15), he sent me a explanation of Virginia's consumer's use tax -- a concept my roanoke.com editor also felt I hadn't explained well. Perhaps I should just avoid number-crunching all together.

One of the interesting things about writing a regular column is seeing which ones generate responses. I knew there would be mail about the Million Mom March. I ran a column in our campus newspaper this spring about why it's important to recognize logical fallacies, but feared it was too academic to interest many. To my surprise, a Ferrum alumnus stopped me in his convenience store one morning to say the column helped him understand why "you sometimes hear people say things that don't make sense."

I've heard that studies show negative comments stick with us a lot longer than positive ones. A person can be praised ten times in a row, and one criticism wipes them all out.

When I began thinking about my virtual mail bag, the pro-gun messages loomed large in my mind, not only because they were recent but because they were so mean-spirited. They very nearly blotted out the notes about Harry Potter, the proud grandfather, the former NBC employee, and those who just wanted to tell me, "I wanted someone to say that. Thank you."

Well, you're welcome. And thank you -- for balancing out my mail bag.

I've got mail!