Certified letter to Sarah Brady regarding mispresentation of statistics and paraphrasing of NRA "Eddie Eagle" safety program on Handgun Control Inc.'s web site

From: William A. Levinson 
[personal address, E-mail, phone number were provided]		 To: Sarah Brady
Handgun Control Inc.
1225 Eye Street NW #1100
Washington, DC 20005 
certified mail, return receipt requested 
Item Z 376 860 725 [Delivered 12/30/99]

Subject: New information on handgun purchases and suicides
 Handgun Control Inc. Gun Safety Game
 
Dear Ms. Brady,
 
Your Web page (http://www.handguncontrol.org/press/release.asp?Record=104) says, "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."
Information about the study you cite is at http://www.gunfree.org/csgv/wintsuicide.html (Gunfree.org is pro-gun control, not pro-Second Amendment). I've enclosed a copy for your convenience. I direct your attention to the editorial in the Journal (emphasis is mine):

But an editorial in the Journal says that the lower murder rate among male gun owners "may represent a true protective effect of handgun  purchase and needs to be considered seriously and examined further."
The editorial, by Dr. Mark Rosenberg of the Collaborative Center for Child Well-being, James Mercy of the Medical College of Wisconsin, and Lloyd Potter of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said the new findings "do not demonstrate that the purchase of a firearm caused suicidal behavior or actually increased the risk of suicide among those who purchased handguns."
As an industrial statistician, I can easily understand how the original statement "In the week after buying a  handgun, the purchaser was 57 times more likely than the general population to commit suicide, according to a study of California handgun buyers published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine" could confuse a member of the general public. It sounds like buying a handgun makes you more likely to commit suicide, but it's easy to confuse cause and effect.
The data takes a very small segment of the population— the number of people who buy handguns within any given week. (Most gun owners buy only one or two guns in their entire lifetimes.) Among these are all the people who want to commit suicide, plan to commit suicide, and buy a handgun for the sole purpose of committing suicide. They do not buy the gun for self-protection, target practice, collecting, or hunting, and then, because they have a handgun, become suicidal. It's easy to see where the "57 times more likely to commit suicide within a week" comes from. I'm sure researchers could similarly find that a very high proportion of first-time rope, straight razor blade, and sleeping pill purchasers do away with themselves within a week. Finally, one could also use the study's results to "prove" that gun ownership reduces the risk of getting cancer!
Although I do not agree with you about gun control, I recognize that Mr. Brady suffered a traumatic injustice when John Hinckley abused a firearm in 1981. Also, as far as I know, you "walk your talk," i.e. you do not advocate gun control while owning firearms yourself— unlike Senator Dianne "Guns should be outlawed for everybody but me" Feinstein, Washington Post Columnist Carl "Warning Shot" Rowan, and ex-Congressman (now just "con," as in felon) Mario Biaggi. Therefore, you are among the few leaders in the antigun movement for whom I have any respect whatsoever. I am therefore confident that you will retract or qualify your public statement about the link between handgun purchases and suicides now that the error has been brought to your attention.
 
On another matter, I went through Handgun Control Inc.'s "Clarence and Guns" interactive firearm safety game at http://www.handguncontrol.org/game.htm. The correct answer to the mall scenario produces the response (emphasis is mine),
 GOOD JOB!!!! NEVER PICK UP OR PLAY WITH  A GUN!!! A GUN IS NOT A TOY!!!!! If you or a friend find a gun, do not touch it! Leave the area  immediately and go find an adult to tell them about the gun. Clarence and Michelle find a security officer  and  show him the gun. He praises them and gives them a  coupon for ice cream.
I direct HCI's attention to http://www.nrahq.org/safety/eddie/index.shtml
Stop! Don't Touch. Leave the Area. Tell an Adult.
With a firearm present in about half of all American  households, all young children should learn that  firearms  are not toys. That's Eddie Eagle's fundamental,  non-judgmental public safety message.
Now that I've drawn HCI's attention to the source of this excellent advice about what children who find unattended firearms should do, I am confident that HCI will give the appropriate citation and credit to the NRA's Eddie Eagle safety program.
 
 Regards,
 
 
 
 
 William A. Levinson
 
cc by hard copy or electronic mail:
· Citizens' Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms  (CCRKBA)
· Gun Owners of America (GOA)
· Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO)
· Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA)
· Lawyer's Second Amendment Society, Inc. (LSAS)
· National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative
· Action (NRA-ILA)
· Second Amendment Foundation (SAF)