Guns Don’t Kill Americans, Stale Bad Arguments Do

wrath
231

Claim: It’s not particularly unsafe for responsible gun owners in the U.S. to keep firearms in their home. It’s not like there are any statistics on accidental shooting deaths and injuries caused to gun owners and their families (including their children):

Per @anon23281680:

The GOP successfully prevented the CDC from tracking gun related violence for years because of how bad it looks

Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

There were a total of 45,222 firearm deaths in the US in 2020
Unintentional gun death occurs four times more often in the United States than other high-income countries.
Gun violence in the United States results in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries annually,[4] and was the leading cause of death for children 19 and younger in 2020 . . . The rate of firearm deaths per 100,000 people rose from 10.3 per 100,000 in 1999 to 12 per 100,000 in 2017, with 109 people dying per day or about 14,542 homicides in total

IWikipedia: Gun violence in the United States - Wikipedia
Here are some reports by the CDC: https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/resources/FirearmInjurySlides_WYCD_June20.pdf
“10 Leading Causes of Injury Deaths by Age Group Highlighting Violence-Related Injury Deaths, United States – 2018”

And more

@duketrout provides some examples of the common ways gun owners and their families end up dead of maimed by their own weapons:

Suicide would be the most common example, but every year gun owners accidently kill themselves while handling their own guns. Leaving a round in the chamber during cleaning, goofing around with an unexpectedly loaded weapon, the stupid trend where idiots were pointing handguns at their junk (the femoral artery is located in that line of fire), dropping a loaded firearm while drunk or just clumsy, etc.

Also mistaking a family member for an intruder.

In regard to suicide, @euansmith has stats on how a firearm in the house offers more opportunities in that regard compared to other methods:

All suicides

  • Number of deaths: 48,183
  • Deaths per 100,000 population: 14.5
  • Cause of death rank: 11

Source: National Vital Statistics System – Mortality Data (2021) via CDC WONDER

Firearm suicides

  • Number of deaths: 26,328
  • Deaths per 100,000 population: 7.9

Source: National Vital Statistics System – Mortality Data (2021) via CDC WONDER

Suffocation suicides

  • Number of deaths: 12,431
  • Deaths per 100,000 population: 3.7

Source: National Vital Statistics System – Mortality Data (2021) via CDC WONDER

Poisoning suicides

  • Number of deaths: 5,568
  • Deaths per 100,000 population: 1.7

Source: National Vital Statistics System – Mortality Data (2021) via CDC WONDER

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