ACCIDENTAL DEATHS
Myth: Accidental gun fatalities are a serious problem
Fact: Firearm misuse causes only a small number of accidental deaths in the U.S. 202For example, compared to accidental death from firearms, you are:
• Four times more likely to burn to death or drown,
• 17 times more likely to be poisoned,
• 19 times more likely to fall, and
• 53 times more likely to die in an automobile accident.
Fact: In 2001, there were only 65 accidental gun deaths for children under age 13. About 11 times as many children die from drowning.203
Fact: In 1993, there were 1,334 drownings and 528 firearm-related accidental deaths from ages 0-19. Firearms outnumber pools by a factor of over 30:1. Thus, the risk of drowning in a pool is nearly 100 times higher than from a firearm-related accident for everyone, and nearly 500 times for ages 0-5.204
Fact: Medical mistakes kill 400,000 people per year – the equivalent of almost three fully loaded Boeing 747 jet crashes per day – or about 286 times the rate of all accidental firearm deaths.205 This translates into 1 in 6 doctors causing an accidental death, and 1 in 56,666 gun owners doing the same.
Fact: Only 3% of gun deaths are from accidents, and some insurance investigations indicate that many of these may not be accidents after all.206
Fact: Around 2,000 patients each year – six per day – are accidentally killed or injured in hospitals by registered nurses.207
Myth: Handguns are unsafe and cause accidents
Fact: Most fatal firearm accidents involve long guns, which are more deadly. These are typically hunting accidents.208
Fact: Handguns have triggers that are difficult for small (child) hands to operate, and are rarely the cause of accidents.209
Myth: Innocent bystanders are often killed by guns
Fact: Less than 1% of all gun homicides involve innocent bystanders.210
Myth: Citizens are too incompetent to use guns for protection
Fact: About 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person - about 2% of shootings by citizens kill an innocent person. The odds of a defensive gun user killing an innocent person are less than 1 in 26,000. 211And that is with citizens using guns to prevent crimes almost 2,500,000 times every year.
Fact: Most firearm accidents are caused by people with various forms of poor self-control. These include alcoholics, people with previous criminal records, people with multiple driving accidents, and those who demonstrate other risky behaviors.212
Myth: Gun accidents are flooding emergency rooms
Fact: The rate of gun accidents is so low the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission doesn't even mention them in their annual safety reports.