NYDN's Dan Friedman Calls Out WSJ's James Taranto For Fuzzy Math (VIDEO)

WATCH: NYDN Reporter Calls Out WSJ Columnist For Fuzzy Math

New York Daily News reporter Dan Friedman joined HuffPost Live on Wednesday to discuss the clash between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Bob McDonnell over Virginia's gun policies.

Bloomberg called out McDonnell last week for his state's weak gun laws after new data revealed that 90 percent of all guns used in New York City crimes in 2011 were from other states, with Virginia topping the source list. McDonnell responded by plucking specific data points about Virginia's homicide and robbery rates and said they were lower than New York City's. The Daily News fact checked McDonnell's response and determined that the governor was not "facing facts" and that the state was "peddling lies."

"New York State, with 3.5 murders per 100,000 people, had a lower murder rate than Virginia, which had 3.9 killings for every 100,000 people," Friedman wrote in the Daily News.

The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto responded to Friedman's article on Wednesday. "'Peddling lies' is a strong charge," Taranto wrote. "In this case, what Friedman describes as a lie is no such thing. Nor is it a joke, or even an inadvertent falsehood. It is a true statement, and Friedman acknowledges as much. His dispute is over its implications, not its accuracy."

"What James Taranto, who is sort of a blogger at the Wall Street Journal, missed, and he's attacked me a couple times, but he's never contacted me, is that we also compared ... Richmond, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Newport News and Virginia Beach collectively," Friedman said on HuffPost Live. "And if you looked at them combined, they have about twice the murder rate of New York City ... If you're looking at crime rates, cities have unique characteristics. You need to compare city to city."

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