Yesterday, I ran across a video in which the NRA accuses the president of being a hypocrite for simultaneously advocating arms control laws while he and his family are protected by armed secret service personnel.
How much of a hypocrite is he for receiving protection? I am not aware of any units with which to measure or quantify hypocrisy, but I did find some numbers and facts to think about:
Crime rates are often normalized to instances per hundred thousand person years. In other words, in a year in a place with 100 thousand people, this is a measure of how many times the crime in question might be expected to occur.
New York City in 2010 had 6.4 homicides per 100k people.
Canada in 2006 had 1.9 homicides per 100k people.
Japan in 1989 had 1.1 homicides per 100k people.
The United States has been around since 1776.
This year is 2013.
The United States has existed for 237 years.
The United States has one president at a time.
1 [person] * 237 [years] = 237 [person years].
Four presidents (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy) were assassinated while in office.
( 4 [homicide] / 237 [person years] ) * ( 100k / 100k ) =
1687 [homicide] / [100k person years]
Being president is 263 times more dangerous than living in New York City.
As a point of reference, Wikipedia's US Armed Forces page claims there are approximately 1.456 million active duty personnel in the US military. At the same time, icasualties.org/ reports a total of 6661 US military fatalities (combined) in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
1.456M [personnel] * 12.25 [years] = 17.836 million [ person years ]
( 6661 [fatalities] / 17.836 million [person years] ) * ( 100k / 100k ) =
37.5 [fatalities]/[100k person years]
Being president is about 45 times more dangerous than being on active duty in the US military when the country is conducting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As a result of this analysis, I conclude that the president is not a hypocrite in wanting some protection, or at least in accepting some if he wants it or not. Based on the numbers, turning down presidential protection would be downright foolish, just like walking unaware through a New York subway, Baghdad, or Kabul.
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