Hey GSD, don’t forget adding Bush to the picture. After Katrina, the feds were trying to confiscate ALL firearms in New Orleans.

Anyway, this is hilarious. Nice to know our elected officials are no more intelligent than the fine specimens of redneck that populate most of our friendly neighborhood trailer parks.

I mean, you can call yourself a republican, a democrat, a liberal, or a conservative, but dumb is just plain dumb.

The FBI: “In terms of the rate of offenses for each of the four violent crimes, aggravated assault had the highest rate, estimated at 291.1 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants. There were an estimated 136.7 robberies, 32.2 forcible rapes, and 5.5 murders for each 100,000 resident population in 2004.”

Comparing the U.S. to King’s number on Iraq shows us to be five times less violent, on average, than Iraq. With only 6.6 murders/100,000 inhabitants in cities collectively, and 12.5 murders/100,000 inhabitants in cities of 250,000 or more, one wonders about the fairness of comparing almost any place in this country to Iraq.

While we’re at it, why don’t we compare the deaths of 2,464 coalition soldiers and an estimated 1,002 Iraqi security personnel in a country a tenth as populous as the U.S., to policemen killed in the line of duty in the U.S.? If you add those together and divide by 25,000 (assuming an Iraqi population of 25 million), you’d have something like 14 people charged with public security killed per 100,000 inhabitants. I would bet money that 30,000 police officers were not killed in the U.S. during the same time period; in fact, I would bet not even a tenth that many.

If he is talking about violence (death and serious injury) per 100,000, is he including all of the injuries to innocent civilians? If you look at U.S. casulties, approximately 2500 military personnel have been killed; approximately 18,000 have been injured. That ratio is approximately 1:7.

If you apply this same ratio to the 40,000 some odd innocent Iraqis who have been killed, that would be approximately 280,000 innocent Iraqis injured. Now, I know you cannot do this, but with some 40,000 innocent Iraqis killed, how many have been injured? Must be a tremendously high number.

Does King include the American casulties (death and injury) in his figures? If not, he should. Keep in mind that the Americans are wearing body armor and are carrying guns. If they didn’t, their casualty rate would be much higher. How many people in Washington D.C. wear body armor?

It is amazing how ignorant some people are not only in the data they believe in, but also in the belief that the American public will believe them!

Oh, and Steve #92, that’s a good idea of yours — in theory. The idea of eyeballing politicians as they wend their way from expensive lobbyist dinners, to “poker” assignations at the Watergate is truly tempting. Sort of a pork bellies meets silicone. Who knows, it could be the new “Reality TV.”

But I don’t know if we want the streets of Washington patrolled by troops whose “hecka va job commander” plays fast and loose with the Constitution. The last time that happen was the Saturday Night Massacre and Nixon. And I don’t want to go through ALL that again… :-|