rack'm said:
If you consider that there have been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq Theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000. The rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are about 25% 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: Americans should immediately pull out of Washington D.C.
Math doesn't add up.
If you multiply 60x160,000/100,000 - you get 96 = the number of firearm related deaths per 160,000.
If you multiply 96 by 22, you get 2112 - the number of firearm deaths per 100,000 ------ PER MONTH (btw, most deaths in Iraq have NOT BEEN due to firearms but to IED's - improvised explosive devices).
There's no way in hell that DC has an 80 per 100,000 firearm death rate PER MONTH. DC has a population of ~550,000. That would translate into 80 x 5.5 or 440 firearm deaths per month or 440 x 12 = 5280 firearm deaths per year. Impossible. The whole country only has about two to three times that number per year.
The numbers MUST be comparing monthly deaths, with yearly deaths, to make a silly point.
On the other hand ----
A similar statistic would be to compare the state of California to the nation of Iraq. There have been a lot more homicides in California than there have been to our soldiers in Iraq - although the numbers don't compare precisely. That's because although the populations are similar, we aren't comparing the entire civilian population homicides - only those of OUR TROOPS to the entire state population.
Let's face it - it's war. Anyone who thinks you go to war and not have deaths has rocks for brains. The question might be, is this a war worth fighting? In WW2, we lost a quarter million men - but we considered the war worth fighting. We've lost a hundredth of that amount in Iraq in almost as much time (we fought in WW2 for three and a half years). I have to think that as wars go, this is phenomenal. *NOBODY* else fights a war for two and a half years and has numbers like that.
