Expert: Cassandra - 6/4/2001

Question
I received the following and it has all the earmarks of being trumped up, but I can't find it anywhere.  Have you seen this one and do you know whether it's valid?

Alarming Statistics... There ought to be a law
> >
> > Number of physicians in the US: 700,000.
> > Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year: 120,000.
> > Accidental deaths per physician.... 0.171 (U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services)

> > Number of gun owners in the US: 80,000,000.
> > Number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups) 1,500.
> > Accidental deaths per gun owner: 0.0000188(* Benton County News Tribune on 17th of November, 1999).
> >
> > Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
> >
> > "Remember, Not everyone has a gun, but everyone has at least one doctor."
> >
> > Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets out of hand.
> >
> > Remember guns don't kill people, doctors do!  

Answer
Lizbeth,

Ummm, ok, how about if we look at the statistics for accidental choking deaths.  Are we going to ban eating?  

Comparing statistics like this, one could say almost anything.

In fact, as I was looking this up, it finally hit me what had been bothering me.

The key to their claim is ACCIDENTAL GUN DEATHS.  That means if your child (or someone else) takes the gun and kills someone deliberately, that figure isn't in this.

Other data paints a different picture:
http://www.os.dhhs.gov/news/press/2000pres/20000724.html
States that in 1998 only about 4000 children and teens died from firearms.  Down from almost 6000 in 1994.  

Here is a page that at least tries to take into account the accidental/non-accidental thing:
http://spot.colorado.edu/~tiemann/doctors.html

But in the end, it really is comparing apples and oranges.  Doctors see many, many sick people every day.  To compare them to gun owners, as is done above, we would have to start by ensuring that each gun owner sees a large number of "patients" every day, each of which wants to play with his gun. (To simulate that most people visiting a doctor are already sick, those visiting the gun owner will have an interest in playing with the gun.)  Note that the gun owner can't stay in the room all the time with the patients, but can give some advice while he is in the room.

Ok, enough of my silly scenario.  You get the idea.  I think Mark Twain said it best:  

There are three types of lies.  Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.

Thanks for writing!

Cassandra