I will give you links to some rates on these death tolls, but I urge you to do your own research as well.

The King report uses 2002 data for Washington, D.C., finding a violent casualty rate of 45.9 deaths per 100,000 people because the homicides in D.C were extremely high that year. Using the most recent 2004 data, the violent casualty rate in D.C. is 35.8 deaths per 100,000. There were 198 homicides total in D.C. for the entire year.  This is probably why Rstott pointed out that many of the deaths in D.C. are due to carelessness, AND homicides, not just homicides alone.  Almost half of the deaths in D.C. are do to carelessness.  Even if you count the large amount of deaths the homeless suffered when freezing to death in D.C. the total number of homicides in D.C. is much smaller than the estimated 80.6 per 1000 stated above.   King also said he came up with an annualized innocent Iraqi civilian death rate of only 27.51 per 100,000 when he was on the Rush Limbaugh show.  That rate is much higher if you go by http://www.iraqbodycount.or... statistics.  Or are we not counting innocent people including women and children that are killed  in Iraq?  Are we only counting American Deaths?  If you are only concerned with American deaths than still almost twice as many Americans are  killed in Iraq than in Washington D.C. for no good reason.  I don't even want to get into the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that have been killed.  This was just conservative  propaganda to help war mongers continue with this war they so badly want to continue. 

To Jim's question "Should we pull out of Washington D.C. ?"  The answer is NO, we should get new leaders in congress and in the White House who have enough brains to deal with this situation.  Poverty is killing people in D.C.  The homeless situation there is saddening to say the least.   This shouldn't be happening in America.   We need stronger leadership, we need a president that cares about ALL Americans, not just the rich.   I know this is primarily a liberal view but dabnabbit illegal aliens that we lured over here with money and benefits are better off than some Americans...   it's just NOT RIGHT.

Then enlighten us with the correct stats please.

WHERE IS SPARKS?

I'm sorry if I misunderstood your intentions, Jim. I really didn't see any indication that this was supposed to be funny (smilies convey a lot) & there have been plenty of conservative pundits who actually believe this kind of comparison should be taken seriously.

i worry about the folks who listen to these blow-hards & think they have a point (other than the ones on their heads.)

;)

Hey, oooh, for God's sake, lighten up will you? This was done tongue-in-cheek and meant to be funny. There's too much heavy stuff going on in the world today so it's good for us, once in a while, to poke a little fun at ourselves!

Jim Richards

How many Iraqis have died from firearm use in the last 22 months? Shouldn't they also be considered in the equation, in order to get an accurate assessment?

Not so funny, IMHO.