Anti-gunners try to scare people by claiming owing a gun increases your risk of having a firearm related accident or committing suicide with a gun. They like this argument because technically it’s true, one can’t have a firearm related accident if they are never around a firearm, nor can they commit suicide with something they don’t have. What the anti-gunners leave out in their fear mongering is the fact that accidents and suicides involving firearms is very low:
Data recently released by the National Center for Health Statistics shows that in 2008, the number and per capita rate of firearm accident deaths fell to an all-time low. There were 592 firearm accident deaths (0.19 such accidents per 100,000 population) in 2008, as compared to 613 accidents (.20 per 100,000) in 2007. In 2008, the chance of a child dying in a firearm accident was roughly one in a million.
Firearm accidents accounted for 0.5% of all accidental deaths; well below the percentages accounted for by motor vehicle accidents, falls, fires, poisonings, and several other more common types of mishaps.
Firearm suicides rose in 2008 because total suicides rose, but the percentage of suicides accounted for by those misusing firearms remained steady, at just barely over half. This is down from about 60% during the 1980s and early 1990s. The firearm suicide rate remained at just under 6 per 100,000, as it has been every year from 1999 forward. Contrary to claims made recently by some gun control advocates, firearm suicides among children are extremely uncommon, and in 2008, fell to an all-time low.
It must really piss the anti-gunners off knowing trends do not support their message of fear. One half of one percent of accidents involve a firearm, that’s insanely low. Likewise removing firearms from a suicide would only result in the use of another means of suicide. When somebody has been pushed to the point of suicide little is going to stop them besides immediate intervention.