Introduction A fatal gun accident, particularly when a child is involved, often makes state or national news. The reality does not correspond to the perception created by media coverage. Fatal gun accidents declined by almost sixty percent from 1975 to 1995, even though the number of guns per capita increased by almost forty percent.
More children die from accidental drownings or burns than from gun accidents.
Discussion Examining the fatal accident table below, one sees that fatal gun accidents among children are rare. The solutions one may propose to prevent child accidents should differ from those of young adults. As rare as fatal gun accidents are among young children, their actual frequency is probably overstated. Florida State University criminologist Dr. Gary Kleck suggests that some fatal gun accidents may actually be the culmination of a history of child abuse, in other words intentional homicides. Each year about five hundred children under the age of five accidentally drown in residential swimming pools, compared to about forty killed in gun accidents, despite the fact that there are only about five million households with swimming pools, compared to at least 43 million with guns.