There is a piece of disinformation circulating on the net claiming that Washington, DC is more dangerous than Iraq. BULLSHIT!! Here’s the claim:
There has been a monthly 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 firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.
The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 persons for the same period. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capital than you are in Iraq .Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington
Now for the facts. Go to http://www.statemaster.com/state/DC-district-of-columbia/cri-crime. The actual Firearms Death Rate per 100,000 is 31.2 . That makes DC 1st among 50 states and the District. [1st of 51] Not even close to the alleged figure of 80.6. But most of our troops are not dying from gunshot wounds. They are being blown to bits from roadside bombs and mines.
Oh, by the way. Guess what the death rate per 100,000 is from Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices in the District of Columbia? ZERO. The nimrods circulating the nonsense that Washington, D.C. is more dangerous than Iraq deserve a one way, all expenses paid trip to Baghdad.
So how are things in Baghdad?
The Associated Press reports:
BAGHDAD (AP) – Three suicide truck bombers targeted members of an ancient religious sect in northwestern Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people, while the crash of an American transport helicopter near an air base in Anbar killed five U.S. servicemembers.
Four more U.S. soldiers were reported killed in separate attacks – three in an explosion near their vehicle Monday in the northwestern Ninevah province and another who was died of wounds from combat in western Baghdad.
In a separate attack, a fourth suicide truck bomber struck a strategic bridge on the main highway linking Baghdad with the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 10, police said. The span was bombed three months ago and only one lane had reopened, according to the police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Yep. Sure sounds like your typical day in DC.
Thanks for the heads-up, Larry. Now we know what to expect to see tonight on Hannity, O’Reilly and Beck.
Not that I would ever watch them, but now we’re prepared to respond to all our nattering neocon nabob friends and family.
BTW, what is their source for the 80.6 number? Or is it a case of “creative statistics” on their part?
This crap has been put out continually over the past few years. I’ve heard the same line except with Detroit and California used instead of D.C. What any fool should be able to figure out is that the soldiers are being used in the role of police officers. They are not comparable in any way to unarmed civilians. If 2,100 cops (or state troopers) in any jurisdiction had been killed over the past 5 years, the President would have declared martial law a long time ago. Also, notice how the spinmeisters don’t want to discuss the CIVILIAN casualties in Iraq during the occupation. It’s amazing that people are dumb enough to fall for this line. Just shows how low the level of intelligence is for Bush supporters.
It’s more mendacious than that. The DC rate is firearms deaths per 100K per year (2002?). Simple math from the numbers provided shows that the Iraq rate is firearms deaths per 100K per MONTH: 2112 deaths / 160000 is 1320/100K over the 22 months. Divide 1320 by 22 months to get 60 deaths per month, but that’s 720 firearm deaths per 100K per year.
Mr. Johnson,
What were you thinking?
The numbers are obviously incorrect, but tp quite correctly points out the true problem with the cited statistics. You were right about the misinformation, but for the wrong reason. Given your background and current profession, that is somewhat unsettling. As an analyst, what are you supposed to analyze?
To me, this muddiness of thought is the real problem with our political discourse today, instead of a clear statement, “these stupid MFs should take of their shoes before they try to count” you just made the mud pie taller.
It seems a shame that someone like Ron Paul appears the clearest thinker (or at least the best at speaking clearly)in politics today.
Coming up with 720/100000/yr is not a difficult calculation.
euploid–
I think you’re being unduly harsh.
There’s a difference between a business/military analyst and a scientist. The problem was obvious to me because I use dimensional analysis as an occasional mathematical tool and thus pay close attention to units, and because I do non-human demography and thus deal with very different timescales (per hour to per decade). That’s not what business analysts do. [And, even most scientists don’t track units well: I spent the last hour beating my head on my desk deciphering wrong units and wrong confidence intervals in a published peer-reviewed paper.]
The post actually gives units (per 100K) and the DC table he links to gives units (also per 100K): one has to think to realize that the rates must be per person per time unit, then infer from the footnote to the full table 2 steps away from the DC data he linked to (“data from 2002”) that the unit time on the DC data was per year.
tp (triploid?)