White House Dodges on Using Decades-Old Gun Statistics

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney avoided acknowledging today that President Obama has been incorrectly using a 20-year-old statistic on background checks in his push for universal background checks.

President Obama has repeatedly said 40 percent of all gun sales don’t require a background check under current law, and Organizing for Action tweeted the claim last week as well, using the @BarackObama Twitter handle it runs.

But the numbers the White House is citing are several decades old and incorrectly cited, as The Washington Post reported last week, giving the claim a “three pinocchio” rating. The Post explains that while the White House has repeatedly said “40 percent of sales,” the study uses the number to refer to transactions, which includes gifts and inheritances as well as purchases.

The detail changes the results: when gifts, inheritances and prizes are accounted for, the same study shows 26.4 percent of people did not receive their gun through a federally license firearms dealer.

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