What good does that do though? They still have the bug, whether it's marked "unsafe" or not. You could mark every C source file as "unsafe" and that wouldn't magically make C a better language or have fewer bugs.

This talking point needs to stop. Rust could be a better language but that would be because it causes fewer bugs, not because the bugs are labeled "unsafe"

In which code base is this bug easier to find, especially preemptively?

Your bias is showing.

Well this particular bug was avoided in the C code but not in the Rust code, so if we're going the evidence-based route...

Sure, let's do it. Go ahead and tally the reverse too.

If you want evidence-based, you can't cherry-pick.