While I was a guest on Piers Morgan Live on August 13, Morgan took aim at that claim that more guns led to less crime in Virginia. He claimed Virginia had “the highest murder rate in the country” according to 2009 FBI crime stats.
However, Newsbusters has done a yeoman’s work to show that Morgan was wrong.
The 2009 FBI crime stats actually ranked Virginia “behind 23 other states plus Washington DC and Puerto Rico” in instances of “murder and nonnegligent manslaughter per 100,000 inhabitants.”
What’s interesting to note is the “murder and nonnegligent manslaughter” rate per 100,000 inhabitants in Virginia was 4.4. This figure is not even close to the kinds of numbers you see in Washington D.C., where gun control often trumps the 2nd Amendment.
In the nation’s capital, the “murder and nonnegligent manslaughter” rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 24, which is more than five times as high as the rate in Virginia.
The bottom line–Virginia was nowhere close to having “the highest murder rate in the country” in 2009.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins
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