Letters to the Editor

The blame game

I certainly have some understanding and agreement with Tom Knott’s view toward the overpaid sports figures and celebrities (“Boys will be boys — and women often have to pay the price,” Sports, Aug. 1). However, I find it very disturbing that his article all but presents all men as sexual predators and all women as helpless innocent fair maidens. Yes, the scenario exists that another high-paid celebrity figure took advantage of someone’s innocence and will get away with it because he can afford the overpaid lyres, er, lawyers who will knowingly and willingly fight a phony case in our laughable court system/circus ring.

Equally, however, and more often than the politically correct will admit, the scenario also exists that it is one more woman taking advantage in a society where a man is guilty until proven innocent. Even if proven innocent and false charges are proven, he has already been labeled, tarnished and his life ruined beyond repair. It has become another Salem witch hunt atmosphere in today’s society, where a man can be accused of wife abuse, child abuse or molestation and is presumed guilty as charged with no recourse on the accuser when proven false.

Sometimes it is just an angry woman who did not get her way or wants to end a relationship and wants to guarantee she gets the children or just simply wants to ruin the man out of spite, or, even worse, directed to do so by a lawyer to better the case. Better yet, the scenario exists that it is one more woman seeking fortunes who wants a free ride through life. Yes, it could also just be a bad dude, guilty as charged.

The point being, all these scenarios exist, not just the one painted in the article that all women are victims and all men are predators. Both sides equally have their good and their bad.

JOHN CHARETTE

Tucson, Ariz.

A public defense?

Monday’s Op-Ed, “The ban against public safety,” by Eli Lehrer and John R. Lott Jr., presented misleading data to suggest that handgun bans in Washington and Chicago led to increased levels of violence, presumably because citizens were left defenseless without handguns. Mr. Lott knows enough about crime cycles and statistics to know that simple before-after comparisons can produce misleading estimates of a law’s impact.

A careful analysis of the effects of the District’s ban that adjusts for crime cycles found the law was associated with 25 percent reductions in homicides as well as suicides during the first 10 years the law was in place. The ban is not a cure-all for the many social factors and policing problems that contribute to the District’s high rate of violent crime, but there is no evidence that a policy that pumps more handguns into the city will save lives.

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