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« Justice Janice Rogers Brown? It'd be great for RTKBA | Main | 2d Amendment conferences this month »

USA Today, accidents, and "unsecured" guns

Posted by David Hardy · 6 September 2005 07:39 AM

USA Today reports, with customary horror, that 1,700,000 children are in homes with unsecured guns, and that one-third of American homes have firearms in them. It goes on to say 1,400 "children and teens" are shot to death each year, and pumps for laws on gun storage (i.e., to criminalize failure to store in various ways). "It's a frightening problem," says Michael Barnes, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a lobbying group that favors limiting gun ownership.

Let's look at the figures. Actually, in 2003 762 Americans of all ages died in gun accidents, according to the National Safety Council. USA Today gets a higher number by including teens (i.e., up to age 20) and gang-banger homicides, which are hardly revelant to safe gun storage. {UPDATE: above link is broken, but another one to NSC data.]

Economist John Lott calculated the actual number of child gun accidental deaths, and found it was about 30 per year -- lower than the number that die of drowning in buckets.

If about ninety million Americans are in households with guns, and 1.7 million kids are in households with "unsecured" guns (however the study defines that), yet only 30 a year die in accidents .... doesn't it stand to reason that the vast, vast majority of gunowners, and even "unsecured" gun owners, are doing something right? (One useful comparison: lots of houses have "unsecured" chemicals and medicines as well -- and 17,000 people die annually of poisoning accidents). If anything, the figures suggest gun owners display a truly exceptional degree of personal responsibility.

(One aspect: many refuse to use the term "gun accident," on the basis that "accident" imples no one was responsible, and someone had to mess up in each of those 30 cases. I don't hear owners of buckets and medicines and household chemicals being as choosy about the use of "accident.")

· contemporary issues

6 Comments

ODA 564 | September 6, 2005 7:41 PM

According to the Consumer Products Safety Commission and the Center for Disease Control: "Children: In 2001, 859 children ages 0 to 14 years died from drowning (CDC 2003). While drowning rates have slowly declined (Branche 1999), drowning remains the second-leading cause of injury-related death for children ages 1 to 14 years (CDC 2003). "

How many homes have unsecured pools (swimming and wading - swimming pools are the "assault weapons of pools"); bathtubs; sinks; toliets and buckets (again, from the CDC: "Children under age one most often drown in bathtubs, buckets, or toilets (Brenner et al. 2001))?

One death is too many! Ban high-capacity "assault pools" and "easily concealed Saturday-night buckets"! Mandate Federal waiting periods and background checks for water! Do it for the children!

Kevin Baker | September 8, 2005 12:38 PM

I covered the Tucson Citizen's take on this USA Today story in Fact Checking for The Children™. While it can be misunderstood, the article was correct that (approximately) 1400 people under the age of 18 were killed by gunshot in 2002. I used the CDC WISQARS tool to break down the data and provide some comparison.

Tim Lambert of Deltoid has linked to this piece, and one of his commenters has linked to mine.

Matt | September 9, 2005 12:10 PM

I posted this at Deltoid, but I'll cross-post it here and at Kevin's place as well, because I think it raises an interesting question.
-----------------

Both homicide and suicide by definition require intent. Once the intent to kill has been formed, it’s seldom difficult to find means of putting that intent into effect. Thus, Tim, I don’t find your claim that “easy access to a loaded gun by a child could certainly be a factor in [firearm suicides and homicides by minors]” very persuasive at all. Perhaps it could be a factor, but what’s the evidence that it is a factor? Hardy’s decision to exclude intentional killings tracks my own intuitions much more closely than your argument for including them.

Now, here’s a broader question about the legitimacy of using CDC mortality data as a basis for arguments about safe storage laws, and it’s not just directed at Tim. I welcome a reply from anyone with a good answer.

Unless I’m missing something, I think the CDC data tells us almost nothing useful about the meed for or possible benefits of safe storage laws. My question is: Am I missing something?

Everyone seems to assume, for purposes of this discussion, that child firearm deaths are caused by children, who wouldn’t have access to guns if only safe storage laws were in effect. But even leaving aside the question of how effective safe storage laws would be at denying children access to firearms, I’m not at all convinced that we know who causes child firearm deaths, other than suicides. The CDC data breaks down mortality by the age of the victim, not the age of the perpetrator (and I am here using “perpetrator” to include people responsible for accidental deaths). On what basis can we conclude that perpetrators and victims are of even approximately the same ages?

For example, if an adult father accidentally shoots his ten year-old son to death, that death is included in the CDC mortality data as an accidental firearm death for a 10 year-old, right? But I think we can all agree that a “safe storage” law would be unlikely to prevent such a death, unless “safe storage” includes a prohibition on adults even possessing firearms in the presence of children.

The same goes for parents who intentionally kill their children with guns. (I don’t say “murder” because that’s a legal term with specific meaning, and doesn’t include all intentional homicides.) Those deaths, too, go down on the CDC’s rolls as child firearm homicides yet, even moreso than with accidental shootings, are unlikely to be affected by safe storage laws.

On the flip-side, the death of an adult due to the actions of a gun-wielding minor — whether accidental or intentional — is recorded as an adult firearm death by CDC, and isn’t included in the data that USA Today cites. Assuming, just for the sake of argument, that safe storage laws would be at least partially effective at preventing kids from getting their hands on guns, shouldn’t we count these adult deaths as part of the argument for safe storage requirements? Of course we’d also need to know what proportion of the child perpetrators had gained control of their guns without adult acquiescence, versus those who were given access to their guns by adults. If I give my son a rifle and take him hunting, and he accidentally kills me, that’s not a death that any safe storage law (as that term is commonly understood) could have prevented.

In summary, it seems to me that CDC mortality data makes a very poor tool for analyzing the need for or likely effects of safe storage laws. I’d think we would need much higher resolution before we could talk intelligently about those issues.

Again: Am I missing something?

Jennifer | September 11, 2006 12:01 AM

My 9 year-old son took one of his father's unsecured hand guns from his nightstand drawer today. The weapon was loaded. It discharged. I have three young sons. Thank God, I still have three young sons.

His father now understands why I have begged him to secure his weapons.... and why all weapons should be secured.

It is a matter of safety.... or am I missing something?

Jennifer

yep it's me | February 2, 2008 8:11 PM

Well Jennifer,
Have you and hubby taken your children out and actually taught them about guns? Taken them shooting at targets? A gun safety course??? If you had, your kid would not have done that, because as a "Responsible" gun owner, you would have made sure your kids know not to touch a gun.

Lyn | June 28, 2010 8:02 PM

In response to Yep It's me, Your argument to Jennifer makes no sense. You suggest that teaching a child to handle a gun will keep them from using guns irresponsibly or accidentally harming someone. This argument is in direct contradiction with much of the argument you made earlier in this article.

Furthermore, a child who is taught to handle a gun is not being taught to not touch a gun. I understand the premise of your argument that a child who is taught to be responsible will be responsible. Nonetheless, the road to becoming responsible is paved with mistakes and sometimes these mistakes when it comes to guns are dead children.