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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| A Citizens' Army in New Orleans |
| 2007-04-05 |
| ...many New Orleans residents, alarmed by a rising post-Hurricane Katrina murder rate and the city's struggling criminal justice system's failure to stop it, haven't been dissuaded and are following through on the urge to arm themselves. The media is often accused of sensationalizing crime. But that's hardly necessary in New Orleans, which has logged at least 53 homicides since the beginning of the year — the highest murder rate, per capita, in the nation. There were seven unrelated killings in one recent four-day stretch, including four on April 2. National Guard troops and state police have been patrolling city streets since last June. But there appears to be little law enforcement can do to quell the violence... ...a skeptical public is increasingly looking at ways to protect themselves. The topic comes up often in casual party chat and on Internet forums; a typical post on nola.com, the New Orleans Times- Picayune Web site, bears the heading "Armed Citizens Rule!" and reads, "would-be predators flee when a legally carried gun is presented instead of a wallet." Predictably, such chatter has law enforcement officials concerned. New Orleans population is currently less than double the population of US servicemen in Iraq. Doing the arithmetic, it is roughly 10 times more hazardous to be a soldier in Iraq than to live in New Orleans. |
| Posted by:Glenmore |
| #4 AT - I am comparing the violent fatalities to the US military population of Iraq to the violent fatalities to the general population of New Orleans. About 220 so far this year in Iraq, for about 140,000 personnel, about 1 in 636. About 50 so far this year in New Orleans for about 225,000 population, or 1 in 4500 per quarter year. So it is not 10 times more dangerous in Iraq, but 7 times more dangerous. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-04-05 18:43 |
| #3 I recently looked up some murder numbers for Illinois, and more people were murdered in Illinois than soldiers were killed in Iraq DURING THE SAME TIME PERIOD. Illinois has half the population of Iraq, so it is significantly safer to be in Iraq than in Illinois. Considering Iraq's population is 25 Million and NOLA is about 250,000 I guess it is about 4 times safer to be in Iraq than in NOLA. |
| Posted by: Dino Spomoth7611 2007-04-05 14:18 |
| #2 it is roughly 10 times more hazardous to be a soldier in Iraq than to live in New Orleans. Glenmore - Not sure I get that math. Are you comparing the entire population of Iraq to the population of people who live in New Orleans? Don't want to look it up, but I suspect that the population of Iraq is much greater than the population of New Orleans. Maybe you need to add in the population of DC, Pittsburg, and other tough American cities to make the population correlation one on one. Are you counting only combat deaths or are you including auto accident and other forms of death that you are not including in the New Orleans stats. Not saying you are wrong - just wondering how you did it. |
| Posted by: Angaiger Tojo1904 2007-04-05 12:57 |
| #1 C-itizens O-n P-atrol |
| Posted by: Steven 2007-04-05 10:42 |