Along with a steady increase in the U.S. population and a larger increase in the number of privately owned firearms in the United States, the annual number and per capita rate of accidental deaths involving firearms have decreased steadily for decades. 

The U.S. population is at an all-time high of about 300 million, and rises about one percent per year. The number of privately owned guns in the U.S. is at an all-time high of 250+ million, and rises about two percent per year. 

The annual number of accidental deaths involving firearms has been decreasing for decades. Since 1930, the number has decreased 75 percent, while the U.S. population has more than doubled and the number of firearms has more than quintupled. Among children, such deaths have decreased 86 percent since 1975. Today, the odds are a million to one against a child in the U.S. dying in a firearm accident. 

The fatal firearm accident per capita rate has decreased 92 percent since 1904. (Since 1991, the firearm murder rate has decreased 44 percent, and the firearm suicide rate has decreased 32 percent.) 

Firearms are involved in 0.7% of accidental deaths nationally. Most accidental deaths involve, or are due to, motor vehicles (37.6%), poisoning (19.6%), falls (16.3%), suffocation (4.9%), drowning (3.0%), fires (2.7%), environmental factors (2.0%), medical mistakes (1.9%), and bicycles and tricycles (0.8%). Among children, the figures are motor vehicles (42.4%), suffocation (18.7%), drowning (15.5%), fires (8.8%), bicycles and tricycles (2.3%), poisoning (1.8%), environmental factors (1.7%), falls (1.6%), firearms (1.4%), and medical mistakes (0.9%). 

Voluntary firearms safety training, not government intrusion, has decreased firearms accidents. NRA firearm safety programs are conducted by more than 55,000 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. 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 26,000 schools, civic groups, and law enforcement agencies to reach more than 21 million children. 

For more information, visit www.nrahq.org/education/index.asp, www.nrahq.org/safety/eddie/, and www.nraila.org/Issues/ (click “accident statistics”).

Copyright 2008, National Rifle Association of America