Do We Want Fewer Firearms
Accidents in the USA.. or More?
By Rob Morse. June 26th, 2019
Original Source
I want to make us safer and we might have more firearms accidents than we have today. I put that shocking statement in front of you rather than stand accused of it later. You might think that fewer guns would make us safer. The more I learn, the more I doubt that approach.
Let’s be clear that I don’t want firearms accidents to happen. Nobody should. What I want is for fewer of us to be hurt. If many of us are attacked by criminals and legal gun owners are very safe with their firearms, then more guns may mean fewer injuries overall. Which approach will save lives, more honest people with guns, or if fewer honest people go armed? Crime and medical reports give us some information.
I found data from 2017. The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention said we had 676 children under 12 years old injured with a firearm that year. That is about two a day, and that sounds horrible to me. I kept reading and found out that only one-out-of-6000 accidents involved a firearm. Also, all the unknown causes were classified as "accidents".
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Strictly speaking, the word "accident" should usually be replaced with "negligence". A gun owner's "accident" is invariably due to a negligent discharge - implying a lack of safe handling. In the sad cases where children are harmed through gun handling curiosity, there is invariably negligence on the part of the gun owner by leaving a firearm unsecured. Perhaps "accident" could be used for the unfortunate instance of a person being hit by a stray bullet, but even that might be a moot point - a loose term like "mishap" might be more fitting.
