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The New York Times has a new piece by a gun control advocate who claims that increasing law enforcement in D.C. will be either “needless” or counterproductive. At least gun control advocates are consistent, they don’t want law enforcement to protect people at the same time they don’t want people to protect themselves, though we didn’t make that point in the piece. Here is a letter to the New York Times that we submitted, though (big surprise) it wasn’t accepted.
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To claim that President Trump’s policies fuel crime and “needlessly” increasing law enforcement ignores the facts in Washington, D.C. (“Trump’s Crackdown will Make Crime Worse,” Aug. 22, 2025).
In December 2024, DC had 1,340 patrol officers and about 3,400 of any type of officer, and only a third on duty at once, that left roughly 450 patrol officers protecting a city of 720,000. Trump changed the equation by sending in more than 500 federal officers and about 800 National Guard troops—doubling the city’s visible law enforcement.
The results speak for themselves. Last year, D.C. led the nation’s big cities in murders—28% higher than Indianapolis and 179% above the average. Yet for 12 straight days through Sunday, not a single homicide occurred. The odds of that happening by chance are extremely small—just 1 in 272 compared to this year’s rate, and 1 in 478 against last year’s.
In addition, virtually all those lived saved are blacks. A National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform analysis of D.C. homicides between 2019 and 2021 found that 96% of victims were black.
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