I was forwarded an email today that made some astounding contentions regarding our fair city and our homicide rate:
If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths, that gives a monthly firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.
The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period.
That means that you are about 33% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capital, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.
Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington immediately.
Sadly, I think their data is horribly mangled. If you look at the MPD’s data for the past few years, you’ll see that the total homicide count, roughly, since March of 2003 is a little over 700. There are 550,000 residents of DC, which would put the total percentage of murders per 100,000 people to approximately 127.8 over the span of 33 months, averaging 3.8 murders per month over that 33 month span per 100,000 people. There have been 2686 American deaths in Iraq since the start of the war in March of 2003, making 1678.8 deaths per 100,000 soldiers, or 50.8 deaths per month.
By no means is DC anywhere near as dangerous as Iraq and it’s folly to say so. Not to mention, DC’s statistics do not break out gun deaths specifically. The whole thing’s a bad crafted myth, proven demonstrably false with limited resources and research. For shame.
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.
