The sad truth is protection orders do very little, and that is about all that Herald columnist Lloyd Omdahl got right ("Do protection orders prevent domestic violence?", column, Page A4, Nov. 2).

Omdahl is inaccurate when he writes that "in the vast majority of cases, men are the aggressors, and women are the victims."

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Martin Fiebert, a psychology professor at California State University, Long Beach, says this in his summary of his research: "This bibliography examines 286 scholarly investigations: 221 empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 371,600."

A person also needs little evidence to get a protection order. The "preponderance of the evidence" standard can be as little as the statement, "I am afraid of him!"

Some domestic violence shelters will file orders at no cost to females but turn away men when they need help. False allegations are used and sometimes coached to help get a protection order.

North Dakota law mandates that the predominant aggressor be arrested, and that can be the one who is defending himself or herself to get away-because that person used more aggression to escape or restrain the attacker.

Laws need to be written to help everyone. If we stay with the misleading assumption that domestic violence usually is "man on woman," we will never get any closer to fixing this issue.

Tax dollars also are spent on the shelters that keep this stereotype going.

Omdahl needs to retire and put down his pen. His misinformation only feeds the problem/machine.

Visit mediaRADAR.org for accurate domestic violence research.

Mitchell Sanderson

Park River, N.D.