Since source is provided for these statistics, I turned to a series of Internet searches to see if I could find their origins. In the rare cases where an attribution was given, it ranged from a Seattle newspaper, to a St. Louis TV News program, to a New York sportsmen's club. None of these checked out.

The most frequent (and most likely) attribution I found was to the November 17, 1999 issue of the Benton County News Tribune. Unfortunately, the News Tribune does not have a web site and they have not responded to my inquiries. The most recent independent statistics I can find to validate the claims in the above chain date back to 1996.

While ...

Since source is provided for these statistics, I turned to a series of Internet searches to see if I could find their origins. In the rare cases where an attribution was given, it ranged from a Seattle newspaper, to a St. Louis TV News program, to a New York sportsmen's club. None of these checked out.

The most frequent (and most likely) attribution I found was to the November 17, 1999 issue of the Benton County News Tribune. Unfortunately, the News Tribune does not have a web site and they have not responded to my inquiries. The most recent independent statistics I can find to validate the claims in the above chain date back to 1996.

While the anonymous author's conclusions seem obvious, this information proves nothing. People who have gathered in chat rooms to discuss this message have proposed many arguments against the claims made in this note, including:

* "What exactly is an 'accidental death?'"

* "When people see a doctor, they are usually in poor health to begin with, so failing health has to be considered at least partially responsible for those deaths."..

* "There are quite a few people who will go through life without encountering a person with a gun. Far fewer go through life without seeing a doctor. Thus, more deaths can be attributed to doctors because it's statistically more likely."

Interestingly, this information is posted on literally hundreds of sites for a broad range of purposes. Some used it to point out the futility of gun control legislation, others used it as an argument for stronger malpractice laws and regulation of the medical community or promote alternative medicine. A few identified it as humor. One site even disclaimed that the information was provided to demonstrate that both physicians and gun owners do more good than harm! I once heard a a politician say "Give me the statistics and I'll tell you what to think of them." I guess he was right. Break this chain!