Sarah Brady Speaks with Forked Tongue
#7 in a series of information leaflets from The Stentorian, www.stentorian.com
(C) 1999, William A. Levinson. Permission is granted to print, copy, and distribute hard (non-electronic) copies of this page freely and without royalties of any kind, provided that it is not altered in any manner. The page is formatted so it will fit on a single 8.5 by 11 inch sheet. It may be photocopied, folded in thirds, taped to form a letter-sized piece, and mailed to anyone whom you think it would interest- and they are encouraged to similarly copy and distribute it.

Sarah Brady and Handgun Control Incorporated prove that “truth is the first casualty of war.”

I will say up front that Ms. Brady suffered a traumatic experience when John Hinkley wounded her husband, Jim Brady. The Bradys have every right to be angry- with Mr. Hinkley, not with peaceful firearm owners- about the injustice that Mr. Hinkley perpetrated on them. This incident does not, however, give Ms. Brady the moral or ethical right to mislead the American people. Handgun Control Incorporated’s news release, “Statement of Sarah Brady re: Gun Deaths, Injuries on the Decline,” provides a glaring example of deceptive manipulation of statistics. From HCI’s own Web page, (http://www.handguncontrol.org/press/release.asp?Record=104): “What?s more, a more sobering study conducted by the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California-Davis found that suicide is the leading cause of death among gun buyers, especially women, in the first year after the weapon was purchased. In fact, the study — which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine — found that a person who purchases a handgun is 57 times more likely to commit suicide within a week of buying the weapon than the general population as a whole.” As an industrial statistician with a master’s degree in applied statistics, I should be qualified to comment on this statement.

The statement confuses cause with effect, and it can easily mislead people who are not statisticians- which is doubtlessly its intention.* The figure that Ms. Brady presents implies that, if YOU buy a handgun, you are 57 times more likely to commit suicide within a week of buying it than a member of the general population. That is what HCI wants you to believe. The truth is that the relatively small population of people who buy handguns in any given week (remember, even gun owners may buy only one or two in their entire lifetimes) includes all first-time gun buyers whose sole intention is to do away with themselves. This subset of first-time gun buyers is small, but it is compared to a very small subset of the population: the number who buy handguns in any given week.

In other words, buying a handgun does not make anyone more likely to want to commit suicide, but planning to commit suicide can make someone much more likely to buy a handgun if they don’t have one. One could probably come up with similar “statistics” for first-time purchasers of ropes, sleeping pills, and straight razor blades. In summary, “Figures can lie, and liars can figure.” See also “Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics,” available from The Stentorian. (http://www.stentorian.com/2ndamend/leaflets/)

* I recognize that Ms. Brady is not a statistician, but HCI quotes so many “statistics” that it almost certainly has one on staff, or access to one. This is why I contend that HCI is intentionally lying.
Update: Handgun Control Incorporated was informed by certified mail (http://www.stentorian.com/2ndamend/hci_let.html) about the problem with the “57 times more likely” statistic. The letter was delivered on 12/30/99. Since HCI continues to quote this statistic without qualification, my conclusion is that they are knowingly and willfully misleading and deceiving the public.