Jay at The Right To Bear Arms notes an interesting paragraph in a story on the Heller case:

District officials call the gun restrictions reasonable and necessary for public safety. In 1974, shortly before the district imposed the ban, handguns were used in 155 of the 285 homicides committed in D.C. In 2007, the city reported 181 homicides, nearly 80 percent of which were committed with guns.

I'm sure a lot of you know this, but, if not, here it is again: If a news story gives you two statistics for comparison and provides a percentage for one but not the other, calculate the missing percentage yourself. It often proves that their point is completely wrong.

Luckily, Jay does the math for us. Here are the results

• 1974, before the ban: 54.3% of homicides were committed with a gun
• 2007, three decades after the ban: nearly 80% of homicides were committed with a gun

They don't think you'll catch on. They think you're stupid and won't notice that they're full of it.