NEW YORK — This is the last time I help out the authorities.

Led to believe ad nauseam the District of Columbia has the strictest gun laws in the country — no room for interpretive dance . . . you do the crime, you do the time — Gilbert Arenas got sentenced to 30 days in a halfway house?

I'm not all that convinced a month in a halfway house (or Maxwell House) is exactly going to dissuade the coterie of copycat criminals.