Editor, Gazette-Journal: When a letter urges readers to “check it out for themselves,” it’s worth noticing when the facts don’t cooperate. In a letter I wrote to this paper on Oct. 14, 2024 (“Telling truth from fiction”), I encouraged readers to use a simple “baloney detector” when encountering claims meant to alarm or persuade. A recent letter, “More expensive, less safe” (Battista, Jan. 29, 2026), provides a timely opportunity to apply that approach. First: What evidence supports the claim? The letter presents a long list of sweeping policy changes—new taxes, election procedures, immigration rules, equipment bans—and anchors them to a single bill number, Virginia House Bill 863. Yet HB 863 is a narrowly focused proposal addressing sentencing discretion. It does not deal with taxes, elections, immigration, firearms, or landscaping equipment. Readers who take the advice to “check it out” will quickly find that most of the claims are not in the bill at all. Second: Is this an emotional ...