Shooting Statistics

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armsmaster270

New member
Subject: Australian Shooter Magazine Quote


An interesting letter in the Australian Shooter Magazine this week, which I quote:
"If you consider that there has been an average of
160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations
during the past 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths,
that gives a firearm death rate of
60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearm death rate in Washington ,
DC is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period.
That means you are about 25 per cent more likely to be
shot and killed in the US capital,
which has some of the strictest gun
control laws in the US , than you are in Iraq .

Conclusion: The US should pull out of Washington ." :D
 
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THEZACHARIAS

New member
Sounds about right. More people have died in DC & Baltimore from gang violence today than have died here in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban.
 
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Brian Pfleuger

Moderator Emeritus
That don't add up.

2112 dead in 22 months is 96 per month average, 1152 per year. That comes out to 720 per 100,000... if I'm not mistaken.


The person publishing those numbers is multiplying 160,000 by 22 months, implying a total of 3,520,000 soldiers, which is ridiculous. Based on that theory you'd have to be counting every visitor in DC during the same time period and multiple the entire population by 22 months!

You have to count "resident" soldiers which, in this case, should be the average. For the purposes of "death rate", we don't care that they come and go, we care how many of them are "targets", on average.
 
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Tucker 1371

New member
I figgered it out. Divide deaths by months then divide that number (deaths per month) by soldiers/population. THEN take THAT number (a decimal) and multiply it by 100,000.

2112/22 = 96
96/160,000 = .0006
.0006 x 100,000 = 60

It's running on a deaths per month rate.


It makes sense. And if that's accurate then wow, kinda shows that overly restrictive gun laws really don't affect crime either way. Something the antis need to get through their heads is that you will never take away the ability to commit violent crime. As long as a person has two hands they can murder. The way to reduce crime is to take away or reduce the motivation and willingness to break the law.
 
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spodwo

New member
First - that Australian shooter quote is from an email spin around that was being circulated almost 4 years ago...so it winds up being one of those urban legend type of emails.

Add in all the deaths in a 22 month period, not just US troops, in Iraq attributed to firearms or all deaths attributed to bombs, IEDs, etc. and I would suspect that the number is considerably higher per 100,000 than indicated....

Just an observation...so using this as an "anti-anti" rant seems meaninless to me...but the email that this is based on started surfacing in 2005...

From TruthorFiction.com

The Truth:
This eRumor has circulated for several years and is meant more to be a joke than a serious assessment of statistics.
In addition to Washington DC , TruthorFiction.com has received various versions naming different cities including Philadelphia , New York, and Chicago .

Sometimes the eRumor claims that the text is from a magazine article.

It is not clear what date the eRumor was first circulated so it’s hard to know what actual figures, if any, the writer was using for the 22-month comparison but here is the best we can come up with:

The total U.S. war casualties referenced in the eRumor is 2112.

That would mean that the probable date of those figures would be November, 2005 when, according to month-by-month figures the casualties in Iraq reached 2113.

We’re not sure why the writer chose to refer to that as a 22 month count because from the beginning of the war in March, 2003 to November, 2005, was actually about 30 months and that’s the period of time it took to reach a casualty count of 2113.

For approximately the same period, the number of gun-related deaths in Washington DC was 464. The population of Washington DC during that same period averaged about 560,000, for a rate of deaths per 100,000 of about 82.

The eRumor’s calculation of the death rate in Iraq , however, is incorrect. It’s not 60 per 100,000. It’s 1,320 per 100,000.

Additionally, the death rate of U.S. soldiers in Iraq has not been just "gun related." Many have been killed in other ways such as through roadside bombs.

So the whole point of the email falls to the floor.
Click to expand...

If you want to get REALLY caught up in the math of this - read this thread:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/594867.html

Anyway - have at it...it's an OLD email story which is resurrected here for your enjoyment...
 
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spodwo

New member
Quote:
Originally Posted by GSUeagle1089
Granted it doesn't include Iraqi civillians so it's not quite valid... still, it's an interesting argument.

I think "not quite valid" is a considerable understatement...
Click to expand...

Ya think?

According to news tracking of civilian deaths - 2008 equaled 4859. The same source site stated that US deaths were 313 so it appears valid. Add them together - you get a different view....

Plus you might want to see how deaths by firearms are affected by parking some Abrahams tanks, humvees with .50 cal machineguns, some Bradleys with 25 mm chain gun, cops with AKs/AR15s, and LAVs around some Chicago city streets might affect things...

I'm just saying if you are going to try to do a comparison.... ;)
 
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Evan Thomas

New member
spodwo said:
According to news tracking of civilian deaths - 2008 equaled 4859. The same source site stated that US deaths were 313 so it appears valid.
Click to expand...
Spodwo, I've no idea where you got those numbers, as you haven't cited a source.
According to this article, civilian deaths -- estimated by Iraq Body Count, which is one of the most conservative sources -- are considerably higher than that.

An independent UK/US group, the Iraq Body Count project (IBC), compiles reported Iraqi civilian deaths resulting from the invasion and occupation, including those caused directly by coalition military action, those caused directly by the Iraqi insurgency, and those resulting from excess crime (the Iraqi Body Count project asserts that the Occupying Authority is responsible to prevent these deaths under international law). It shows a minimum of 92,489 and a maximum of 100,971 as of 10 June 2009.[4]

This total represents civilian deaths that have been reported by media organizations, NGO-based reports, and official records.[5] The IBC has been criticized by some who believe it counts only a small percentage of the number of actual deaths because it only includes deaths reported by respected media agencies.[74][94] IBC Director John Sloboda has stated, "We've always said our work is an undercount, you can't possibly expect that a media-based analysis will get all the deaths."[95] However, the IBC rejects many of these criticisms as exaggerated or misinformed.[96]

Here are the yearly IBC civilian death totals[4] (as of 10 June 2009):
Year Dates Civilian deaths
1 2003 12,049
2 2004 10,751
3 2005 14,832
4 2006 27,652
5 2007 24,522
6 2008 9,214
7 2009 1,951
​
Note that these figures include only reported deaths by violence; and that other reputable sources, using methodology derived from epidemiological research, give far higher numbers. (cf. the 2004 and 2006 studies published by the Lancet.)

That aside, the point of my original comment was that it's absurd (and I'd add, somewhat offensive) to make any statement about the relative safety of U.S. and Iraqi cities if the only deaths which "count" are those of Americans.

Sigh. IBTL, and all that...
 
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spodwo

New member
Vanya - the site is www.icasualties.org...seems a pretty thorough site. Plus I noted that the US deaths are pretty much spot on...

It does state that the figures are strictly based on news agencies reports and has media links to recent events [just recently 27civilians were killed in a Mosque bomb - again hard to compare things like this to murders in Chicago].

You can sort the deaths by US, Media, State Deparment, Iraqi, contractor deaths, female, etc.

The Caveat from the website:

This is not a complete list, nor can we verify these totals. This is simply a compilation of deaths reported by news agencies. Actual totals for Iraqi deaths are much higher than the numbers recorded on this site.
Click to expand...

I truly suspect that there are MANY more deaths also but check out the site.

It also tracks casualities - not just deaths...
 
B

Brian Pfleuger

Moderator Emeritus
They took the deaths/month rate over a 22 month period for both places.
Click to expand...

No, they didn't.

The average death rate per 100,000 "people" in Iraq during that period was 720. The average in DC during that period is 30.6.

Note that "people" in Iraq is US troops ONLY.

In order to get that figure they completely fabricated the math behind the number.

If the average troop number is 160,000 for 22 months that does NOT equal 3,520,000 troops. If a rotation is exactly six months and started at exactly the beginning of the 22 months then there would only be 640,000 troops, if a rotation was present at the beginning of the period and left shortly thereafter then there could have been a total of 800,000 troops max.
However, even the 640,000 number would be misleading. What matters is the effective "residence" number, which is actually the average, or 160,000.

They arrive at their number by multiplying the "average" by the months:
22x160000=3,520,000
then divided that number by 100,000 to get the "ratio":
3520000/100,000=35.2
and then dividing the deaths by the result:
2112/35.20=60


This is a COMPLETELY contrived and meaningless number. It is an outright lie. In fact, it appears that the only truth in the entire letter is that DC has the strictest gun laws in America.

The correct number, as I stated above, would be 720/100,000 for Iraq and 30.6/100,000 (for year 2007) for DC. Iraq is 23.53 times more dangerous than DC.
 
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Brian Pfleuger

Moderator Emeritus
I contacted this magazine and got this response:

Dear Brian,

Thank you for your letter.

Unfortunately, as I have said to around 20 of your fellow countrymen who have contacted me this year with a similar query, we did not print that letter in our Australian Shooter magazine, nor any of our other magazines. I do not know where it originally came from nor why it is claimed to have come from us. I suspect someone is 'having a go' at us or making trouble perhaps?

I’m sorry I could not be of more assistance.

Kindest regards,

Kaye Jenkins

Kaye Jenkins
Associate Editor
SSAA Media & Publications
PO Box 2520, Unley, SA 5061
www.ssaa.org.au
www.australianshooter.com.au
 
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