Why wouldn’t we want to close the loophole that allows as many as 40 percent of all gun purchases to take place without a background check?”
— President Obama, remarks on gun safety, March 28, 2013
“FACT: Nearly 40% of all gun sales don't require a background check under current law. #DemandAction”
— tweet from @BarackObama, March 28
The Facts
There are two key problems with the president’s use of this statistic:
The numbers are about two decades old, yet he acts as if they are fresh, and he refers to “purchases” or “sales” when in fact the original report concerned “gun acquisitions” and “transactions.”
Those are much broader categories of data.
.....Digging deeper, we found that the survey sample was just 251 people.
(The survey was done by telephone, using a random-digit-dial method, with a response rate of 50 percent.)
With this sample size, the 95 percent confidence interval will be plus or minus six percentage points.
Moreover, when asked whether the respondent bought from a licensed firearms dealer, the possible answers included “probably was/think so” and “probably not,” leaving open the possibility the purchaser was mistaken. (The “probably not” answers were counted as “no.”)
The numbers are about two decades old, yet he acts as if they are fresh, and he refers to “purchases” or “sales” when in fact the original report concerned “gun acquisitions” and “transactions.”
Those are much broader categories of data.
.....Digging deeper, we found that the survey sample was just 251 people.
(The survey was done by telephone, using a random-digit-dial method, with a response rate of 50 percent.)
With this sample size, the 95 percent confidence interval will be plus or minus six percentage points.
Moreover, when asked whether the respondent bought from a licensed firearms dealer, the possible answers included “probably was/think so” and “probably not,” leaving open the possibility the purchaser was mistaken. (The “probably not” answers were counted as “no.”)
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