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.
updated 07/17/09
