Want to lower the District murder rate? Get yourself to a Virginia gun shop poor folk, lay down cash on a nine and take back the neighborhood.

If only that were legal. That’s the message of today’s  sloppy logic editorial in The Examiner, which argues the D.C. gun ban is to blame for the  number of homicides in the city.

The Examiner arugment goes something like this: Back in ’76 before the ban, the perecentage of homicides involving a firearm was 63 percent. Today it’s 81 percent. Must be because of the ban, the writer reckons. What else could it be?

Further, for those of you law-abiding people who live in crummy neighborhoods, the gun ban hurts you most because you are rendered completely defenseless from the gun-toting thugs.  They murder your ass and you don’t even have the constitutional right to return fire.

Even the biggest gun fan ( myself included) can weed throught the faulty logic.

But like abortion and the Bible, the cultural divide on the gun question makes intelligent discussion impossible. So I won’t quote the stats from public health schools on gun violence (or accidental deaths of kids and spouces).  Who cares what those eggheads think? They probably don’t even know a .22 from a .308.  I won’t quote the police chiefs of many large cities, who overwhelmingly support handgun control measures. What do they care? They are free to carry.

I’ll just argue that clearly a few things besides haircuts have changed in the District since the gun ban in ’76.  So why compare D.C. today to “neighboring jurisdictions that permit an armed citizens” as the Examiner does?  Which jurisdictions are we talking about? McLean? 

Let’s choose pistol towns like Baltimore or Detroit (most dangerous locale around last I checked) for comparison. Check the stats, 1976 and today, on firearm homocides. Going up or down? Must be the gun laws, by your logic.

When you get back after the holiday and take back your editorial page, let’s talk it over. We’ll grab a six pack. I’ll let you borrow a .45. We’ll pace off targets and see who is a better shot. Of course, we’ll have to go to northern Michigan to do it. I keep my guns at deer camp. I believe the statistics.