Further down the board, a request was made to see Accidental Firearm Death statistics. And while those number are "interesting" by themselves, they don't really mean too much unless compared with other forms of accidental death.

Here are the Australian Stats:

Death by Drugs vs Firearm Related Death (not just accidental firearm death) over the last 20 years. Over the last 20 years, firearm related death has been decreasing while death by drugs has been increasing. See the chart here: http://www.ssaa.org.au/druggunaust.html

Suicides overall vs Firearm suicide. Again, over the last 20 years, the number of firearm suicides has been decreasing while overall suicide has been increasing - not just percentage wise, but actual numbers. See chart here: http://www.ssaa.org.au/suiothers.html

All Accidental Death vs Firearm Accidental Death over the last 20 years. The gun buy back was 1996. Notice the little difference - no big jump as the public would be told. See chart here: http://www.ssaa.org.au/AccidentfirearmVallother.html

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are charts which compare drowning, falling, fire, etc. And they all show that accidental death by firearm is the least likely way someone will die accidentally.

Stats from other countries - USA, UK, Switzerland - will be shown when found.

Michael Ross

P.S. I don't know what the stats from those countries will show because I haven't seen them, but I deduce they will reveal similar results - ie: accidental firearm death is the least likely way someone will die by accident. And I predict Switzerland - a country where every home has a gun - will have the lowest gun crime stats too.

P.P.S. One thing that should be considered when viewing accidental firearm stats is the majority use of the firearms within the respective country - range shooting vs field shooting. I would expect a higher number of accidental firearm deaths in countries were a lot of field shooting is done compared to countries were a lot of range shooting is done.