Gun Control & RKBA

On a per-owning-household basis, swimming pools are ten to a hundred times more likely to kill a young child than a gun in the home is, depending on what age bracket you look at. Bicycles account for more accidental child deaths as well. If you factor out accidental shootings in the homes of criminals, who are disproportionately represented in the accident stats, the accident risk is even lower.

According to CDC WISQARS data (2012), of 4,147 accidental deaths of children aged 0-14, only 62 involved gun accidents (same number as falls). 708 kids drowned that year; 1,418 were killed either in motor vehicles, or from being hit by motor vehicles; 308 died in accidental fires; 94 died from accidental poisoning; and 1,118 died from accidental suffocation. Any of those are a parent's worst nightmare, and all of us take steps to prevent them. But pretending that gun accidents are a huge threat compared to the others is simply misinformed or lying; gun accidents account for less than 2% of child accidental deaths aged 0-14.

Gun homicides are concentrated in the same age demographic as gang activity is, late teens to mid 20's. Most criminal shooters have prior criminal records; murder or attempted murder is very rarely the first crime someone commits. Some gun control organizations pretend that young-adult gang members are "children" for better fundraising stats, but the fact is that if you are not involved in criminal enterprise, not a domestic abuser, and store your guns thoughtfully, guns in the home are not a significant threat to your kids, period. If you consider guns in the home uniquely threatening, you are certainly free not to own them and to bar your own kids from visiting homes of gun owners, but you don't get to make that choice for my home, thanks.

FWIW, for all age groups combined, reported bicycle accidents kill more Americans annually (722) than all gun accidents (600)---or rifle/"assault weapon"/shotgun murders (510)---and bicycle accident fatalities are probably underreported. For comparison, drowning kills 3,200 annually, and in my immediate family we've had several close calls with drowning over the years, yet I'd never demand that people be forced at gunpoint to give up their swimming pools or going to the beach.