ON May 22 you reported how the Rev Dan Bryant, from Springfield, Oregon, told a hushed General Assembly of the tragedy which had hit his home town. That day he spoke through tear-stained eyes of the awful pain and grief caused by a 15-year-old boy, brought up in a gun culture and on a daily diet of television violence. For many of those present, memories flooded back of the massacre of the innocents in Dunblane.

It is now generally accepted that ''mad-cow disease'', which has had such devastating implications for the British meat industry, was caused by feeding cheap but alien material to cattle. Many scientists continue to be worried about the long-term effects of introducing vast quantities of hormones and antibiotics, pesticides and herbicides to the food chain and nature's delicate balances. They fear it could trigger off a series of gradual, but dangerous, changes.

I am equally concerned about the long-term effects of a media in which the worst values are constantly on display and the best rarely whispered. From an early age, cheap, violent, and lustful images are entering the minds and bloodstream of the young.

A decade ago those who questioned the practices of feeding cattle to cattle, and intensive chemically-aided farming, were pilloried. Fortunately the tide has turned. Our collective psyche has been disturbed by recent events.

I wonder how long it will be before people realise how people's minds are also being poisoned by much of the garbage they are being fed by the tabloid press, sex-saturated magazines, and some television programmes. The availability of pornography on the Internet is now another major concern.

Yet still some regard as eccentric those of us who keep pointing out the long-term dangers. Surely we should treat our children's minds at least as gently as their stomachs? Unhealthy thoughts and images have a way of working themselves out into deeds.

This being so, we ought to be more concerned about the long-term physical, emotional, social, and cultural damage being caused by the constant bombardment of the minds of the young and the vulnerable, some of whom now have sexual relationships before they have learned how to make any other kind of lasting relationship. Should we really be surprised that we now have such a high teenage pregnancy rate, and 29-year-old grandmothers?

Abraham Lincoln was right when he said that the real power in a nation lies not with those who shape its laws, but with those who shape its public opinion.

Very Rev Dr James A Simpson,

The Manse, Pitcairngreen, Perth.

May 25.

THE recent Channel 4 ''documentary'' on the effect of the latest firearms legislation on gun clubs merely continues the media onslaught on shooters and their sport. It appears that there are no depths to which these so-called reporters will not stoop in order to malign decent sportsmen, including breaking the existing law to sensationalise their grubby little programme.

The muzzle-loaded-pistol hysteria now being generated is based on ''concealability'', as if any of the recent atrocities were committed by adults or children who cared who saw them murder. This logic appears to have escaped the anti-gun lobby, or it may be the only hook they have left on which to hang their prejudices and try to frighten a gullible public.

For my own part, I find it grossly offensive that all shooters should be classed as potential child-killers. Lord Cullen certainly did not take this view, but his report was swept aside in the dash for votes at the last election.

As the Home Office continues to drag its feet over compensation to thousands of pistol owners whose property has been confiscated, it may be opportune for some enterprising journalist to try to uncover the real cost of the Firearms Amendment Act before any other legislative stupidity is forced upon us.

Ian Thomson,

3 Hilltop Place, Ayr. May 23.