DID YOU KNOW? States with high household gun ownership have more unintentional shooting deaths than states with low household gun ownership.

• In 2010 in the U.S., 606 people died from an unintentional shooting (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC)).


• In 2011,14,675 people were wounded in an unintentional shooting but survived (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC).

• The mortality rate from accidental shootings is 8 times higher in the four states with the most guns compared to the four states with the fewest guns (Miller, 2001, p. 481).


• For kids ages 5 to 14, the mortality rate is 14 times higher in high gun states than low gun states (Miller, 2001, p. 481).


• For kids ages 0 to 4, the mortality rate is 17 times higher in high gun states than low gun states (Miller, 2001, p. 481).


• For every age group, where there are more guns there are more accidental deaths (Miller, 2001, p. 483).


• For adults, keeping a gun in the home quadruples the risk of dying of an accidental gunshot wound (Wiebe, 2003).

DID YOU KNOW? A third of homes contain guns, many of them readily accessible.

• Thirty-three percent of U.S. households contain a gun (Pew, 2009), and half of gun-owning households don't lock up their guns, including 40 percent of households with kids under age 18 (Johnson, p. 175).
  
  
• Both firearm prevalence and questionable storage practices (i.e. storing firearms loaded and unlocked) are associated with higher rates of unintentional firearm deaths (Miller, 2005, p. 665).
  


• A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in a completed or attempted suicide (11x), criminal assault or homicide (7x), or unintentional shooting death or injury (4x) than to be used in a self-defense shooting (Kellermann, p. 263).

• Most unintentional shooting deaths occur in the home (65 percent), based on data from 16 states.  The most common context of the death (30 percent) was playing with the gun (Karch, 2010).
  
  
• In almost half of unintentional shooting deaths (49 percent), the victim is shot by another person. In virtually all of these cases, the shooter and victim knew each other (Hemenway, p. 1184).
  

DID YOU KNOW? Unintentional shootings are a problem among children, teens, and young adults.

• For 5 to 14 year olds, the U.S. unintentional firearm death rate is eleven times higher than the combined rates of 22 other high-income developed countries (Richardson, p. 4).


• In 2010, 134 children and teens ages 0-19 were killed in an unintentional shooting (NCIPC).


• In 2011, 2,886 children and teens ages 0-19 were treated in an emergency room for an unintentional gunshot injury (NCIPC).

SOLUTION: We make it too easy for dangerous people to obtain dangerous weapons. There are only a few gun control laws on the books, and even those have loopholes. We should make it harder for convicted felons, the dangerously mentally ill, and youth to get the guns in the first place. We can do this by passing effective laws that make sense.

Sources

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Rates of Homicide, Suicide and Firearm-related Death Among Children – 26 Industrialized Countries." Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report, 46(5)(02/07/97):101-105

Hemenway, David, et al, “Unintentional Firearm Deaths: A Comparison of Other-Inflicted and Self-Inflicted Shootings,” Accident Analysis and Prevention 42(2010): 1184-1188

Johnson, Renee, Tamera Coyne-Beasley, Carol Runyan, "Firearm Ownership and Storage Practices, U.S. Households, 1992–2002: A Systematic Review," American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 27:2 (2007): 173-182

Karch, Debra; Dahlberg, Linda; Patel, Nimesh, “Surveillance for Violent Deaths - National Violent Death Reporting System, 16 States, 2007,” MMWR, 59(SS-4) May 14, 2010: 1-50

Kellermann, A. L., "Injuries and Deaths due to Firearms in the Home," Journal of Trauma, 45:2 (1998):263-67

Miller, Matthew; Deborah Azrael, David Hemenway, Mary Vriniotis, "Firearm Storage Practices and Rates of Unintentional Firearm Deaths in the United States," Accident Analysis and Prevention, 37 (2005):661-67

Miller, Matthew; Deborah Azrael, David Hemenway, "Firearm Availability and Unintentional Firearm Deaths." Accident Analysis and Prevention, 33(2001): 477-84

National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/. Calculations by Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 2012.

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2009 Values Survey, Final Topline, Question e.F2, April 2009, accessed 6/29/2009 at http://people-press.org/reports/questionnaires/513.pd. The number of guns in the home is estimated via telephone survey research. The U. S. does not register guns, so it is not possible to count them.

Richardson, Erin G., and David Hemenway, “Homicide, Suicide, and Unintentional Firearm Fatality: Comparing the United States With Other High-Income Countries, 2003,” Journal of Trauma, Injury, Infection, and Critical Care, published online ahead of print, June 2010

Wiebe, DJ, "Firearms in U.S. Homes as a Risk Factor for Unintentional Gunshot Fatality," Accident Analysis and Prevention 35(2003)711-716