Our murder rate is in the neighborhood of the rates found in major Canadian cities.
BTW, the largest municipality in the Washington DC SMSA is Fairfax County, so any statistics relevant to DC that you might use to show the flavor of the place ought to use Fairfax County as the base. DC is a small enclave in the SMSA and is not representative.
So, what makes Fairfax different than DC? Well, for one, it has the highest median family income in the entire country ~ which makes it possible for us to pay for lots and lots of guns. We also have a rather high percentage of foreign born people, many of them from Afghanistan ~ they learn about guns from childhood in that place. Guess everybody else is a veteran of an army somewhere, even guerrilla movements.
If ever there was a place that might be affected by guns leaping off the tabletop and killing people, this is it.
I think the big difference between here and places where they are killing each other is the level of armaments you might expect to face if you get out of hand. Best keep your pistols in your holsters around here.
It's very difficult to believe that lack of access to guns by the population in Canada plays no part in their lower murder rate.
Regarding your point that the figre I posted earlier for DC does not take the metro area into account, here's a listing of the murder rates for 300 major US metro areas.
http://www.crimetrends.com/id5.html
The DC area (I live in the District, BTW), still comes in at 7.4 murders per 100,000, compared to Toronto's 2/100K.
There isn't all that much different between the two areas- they are both around the same size, both areas have significant minority populations etc. So, what accounts for the differences in murder rates?