Gun Accident Deaths Now At All-Time Low

Firearm Safety In America 2007

The number of privately owned guns in the U.S. is at an all-time high, and
rises by about 4.5 million per year.1 Meanwhile, the nation's violent crime
rate has decreased 38% since 1991 and is now near a 30-year low.2 Below,
statistics from 1981 forward are from the National Center for Health
Statistics,3 while those prior to 1981 are from the National Safety
Council.4 The NCHS' annual numbers, rates and trends of common accidents and
selected other causes of death, for the U.S., each state, and the District
of Columbia, are available on the NRA-ILA website in spread*** format.5

.. Firearm accident deaths have been decreasing for decades. Since 1930,
their annual number has decreased 80%, while the U.S. population has more
than doubled and the number of firearms has quintupled. Among children, such
deaths have decreased 89% since 1975.

.. Firearm accident deaths are at an all-time annual low, nationally and
among children, while the U.S. population is at an all-time high. In 2004,
there were 649 such deaths nationally, including 63 among children. Today,
the odds are a million to one against a child in the U.S. dying from a
firearm accident.

.. The firearm accident death rate is at an all-time annual low, 0.2 per
100,000 population, down 94% since the all-time high in 1904.

.. Firearms are involved in 0.6% of accidental deaths nationally. Most
accidental deaths involve, or are due to, motor vehicles (39%), poisoning
(18%), falls (16%), suffocation (5%), drowning (3%), fires (3%), medical
mistakes (2%), environmental factors (1%), and bicycles and tricycles (1%).
Among children: motor vehicles (45%), suffocation (18%), drowning (14%),
fires (9%), bicycles and tricycles (2%), poisoning (2%), falls (2%),
environmental factors (2%), and medical mistakes (1%).

Education decreases accidents. Voluntary firearms safety training, not
government intrusion, has decreased firearms accidents. NRA firearm safety
programs are conducted by more than 51,000 NRA Certified Instructors
nationwide. Youngsters learn firearm safety in NRA programs offered through
civic groups such as the Boy Scouts, Jaycees, the American Legion, and
schools.6 NRA's Eddie Eagle GunSafe® program teaches children pre-K through
6th grade that if they see a firearm without supervision, they should "STOP!
Don`t Touch. Leave The Area. Tell An Adult." Since 1988, the program has
been used by 25,000 schools, civic groups, and law enforcement agencies to
reach more than 20 million children.7

The "cars and guns" myth. "Gun control" supporters advocate government
intrusion, rather than education, to reduce accidents, claiming that driver
licensing and auto registration caused motor vehicle accident deaths to
decline between 1968-1991, and that gun registration and gun owner licensing
would reduce gun accidents. They ask, "We register drivers and license cars,
so why not guns and gun owners?"

Vehicle registration and driver licensing laws were not imposed to reduce
accidents, nor did such regulations reduce accidents. Most such laws were
imposed between the world wars, but motor vehicle accident deaths increased
sharply after 1930 and didn't begin declining until 1970. Despite more
regulation of vehicles and drivers over the years, vehicle accident deaths
have increased during the last decade.

Between 1968-1991, the years cited by the anti-gunners, the motor vehicle
accident death rate dropped only 37% with vehicle registration and driver
licensing, while the firearm accident death rate dropped 50% without gun
registration and gun owner licensing. The truth is, the anti-gunners want
registration and licensing not for safety, but to erect the record-keeping
apparatus necessary to make confiscation of privately owned firearms
achievable in the future. The first leader of Handgun Control, Inc. (since
renamed the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence) said that registration
was the second step in the group's three-step plan to confiscate all
handguns.8

Another difference between guns and cars is that the purchase and ownership
of arms is a right expressly protected by the constitution, whereas
operating a vehicle on public roads is a privilege. A license and
registration are not required to merely own a vehicle or operate it on
private property, only to do so on public roads. Similarly, a license and
permit are not typically required to buy or own a gun, or to keep a gun at
home, but are usually required when hunting or carrying a gun for protection
in public places.

Anti-gunners' lies about children and guns. Brady Campaign's then-president,
Michael Barnes, and Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) claimed that 12 children
die from gun accidents every day. President Bill Clinton campaigned for
so-called "triggerlock" and "smart" gun laws, and likely 2008 presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton have claimed that 13 children are killed with guns
every day. The HELP (Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan) Network (which is
dedicated to "changing society's attitude toward guns so that it becomes
socially unacceptable for private citizens to have handguns") put the figure
at "an average of 9 children" daily. Other "gun control" advocates have
varyingly claimed 14 per day (or 5,000 yearly or one every 90 seconds). Some
count anyone under the age of 24 as a "child," to get even higher numbers.9
In fact, on average there is one firearm-related death among children per
day, including one accidental death every 6.5 days. Anti-gunners add the
relatively small number of firearm-related deaths among children to the much
larger number of deaths among juveniles and young adults, and dishonestly
call the total "children."

"Gun control" supporters point to a study claiming that so-called "Child
Access Prevention" (CAP) laws (which make it a crime, under some
circumstances, to leave a gun accessible to a child who obtains and misuses
it), imposed in 12 states between 1989-1993, decreased fatal firearm
accidents among children.10 The study was produced by people from the
Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, a group active in the HELP
Network. The study's flaws: Firearm accident deaths among children began
declining in the mid-1970s, not in 1989, when "CAP" laws were first imposed.
Also, such accidents have decreased nationwide, not only in "CAP" states.
And, also in 1989, NRA's Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program® was introduced
nationwide.

1. See BATFE, "Annual Firearm Manufacturers and Export Reports"
(www.atf.gov/firearms/stats/index.htm).

2. FBI, Crime in the United States 2005 (www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/) and BJS
(http://bjsdata.ojp.usdoj.gov/dataonline/).

3. See www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars or wonder.cdc.gov.

4. Available at www.nsc.org/.

http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=1205. See
www.nraila.org/Issues .

6. For more on NRA training programs, visit www.nrahq.org (click "Education
and Training") or call 703-267-1500.

7. For more on the Eddie Eagle program, visit www.nrahq.org/safety/eddie/ or
call 800-231-0752.

8. Pete Shields, quoted in The New Yorker, "A Reporter At Large: Handguns,"
July 26, 1976.

9. NRA-ILA "Not 12 Per Day" fact ***,

10. Journal of the American Medical Association, Oct. 1, 1997.

http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=120


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