Attn: Joe King

The New Republic tells us that the nation has too many firefighters. Unfortunately, John Kerry is pandering to firefighters unions by promising federal funds to hire 100,000 more firefighters nationwide. Writer Gregg Easterbrook supports his thesis with these facts:

In 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are available, there were 48 percent fewer building fires in the United States than in 1977, though there were substantially more buildings. From 1977 to 2002, civilian deaths in fires declined 46 percent and deaths of firefighters declined 38 percent. The trends of fewer fires, fewer civilian deaths, and fewer firefighter deaths hold for almost every year of the past quarter-century except 2001, the year of September 11. Stricter building codes, the proliferation of smoke detectors, and the fact that most new commercial structures and many new homes have built-in sprinkler systems has led to a big drop in the incidence and severity of building fires.

I think this speaks for itself.