Kids, Guns, Swimming Pools, and Buckets
"Contrary to the impression created by sensationalist
media, fatal firearms accidents involving children are far from common. In
the United States, about half of all homes contain guns; the total gun
supply is about 240 million, and there are tens of millions of children in
the country. Yet according to the National Safety Council, in 1995 there
were about 30 fatal gun deaths of kids aged 0 to 4 and fewer than 40 of
kids aged 5 to 9. This shows that, even without legislation from
Washington, the overwhelming majority of families with firearms already
knows how to act responsibly.
"Any parent knows that a single
child's death is unspeakably tragic. Yet the number of toddlers who die
from gun accidents is smaller than the number who die from drowning in
buckets. And it's much lower than the 500 who die in swimming pools.
"More generally, the total number of fatal accidents involving kids aged 0
to 14 in 1995 was 6,500, and fatal firearms accidents accounted for just 3
percent of the total. Yet the president is not scoring political points
inveighing against bucket manufacturers, or demanding federal laws against
unfenced pools on private property. Politics, not saving children's lives,
is the foundation of the current anti-gun campaign."
-- from "Loaded Guns Can Be Good for Kids," by Dave Kopel and Eugene
Volokh, published as a Cato Institute Daily Online Commentary June 1, 1999.
(Thanks to Dan Gifford.)
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