Accidental Firearm Death Stats as requested further down the board...

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.

The UK chart shows the VAST REDUCTION in legal gun ownership has NOT reduced violent crime rates. See chart here: http://www.ssaa.org.au/UKGUN.GIF

There is more violent crime in Canada then the US, per head of population. See chart here (Canada is the black block): http://www.ssaa.org.au/CANUSA.GIF

Crime stats before and after the Australian gun buy back show NO REDUCTION... no "safer community" as we had been told. See here: http://www.ssaa.org.au/CRIMESTATS9697.HTML

Michael Ross

Mike,

Why do the stats for the first two charts END over 10 years ago?

Any good gun control advocate is going to want to see what happened in the following years.

- Adam.


Leave a weapon lying around the house that your kids can play with... click here...

Here's some food for thought.

A couple of decades ago, when US cities were hounding their police departments for their horrible crime statistics, statistics that were costing big tourist bucks, the nations police chiefs came up with a winning solution: Let's only write police reports for the more serious crimes, and not report every altercation that is called in. Suddenly, crime in the city was on a downward spiral.

Granted, there were also some good crime prevention programs instituted. But this all begs the question: Are we comparing apples to oranges here?

> Here's some food for thought.

> A couple of decades ago, when US cities were
> hounding their police departments for their
> horrible crime statistics, statistics that
> were costing big tourist bucks, the nations
> police chiefs came up with a winning
> solution: Let's only write police reports
> for the more serious crimes, and not report
> every altercation that is called in.
> Suddenly, crime in the city was on a
> downward spiral.

> Granted, there were also some good crime
> prevention programs instituted. But this all
> begs the question: Are we comparing apples
> to oranges here?

Good observation, Ed.

According to the article linked to in the other thread (I believe it was that article, it could have been something else I was reading), the way the US and the UK calculate their murder rates results in, as high as possible count for the US and a low as possible count for the UK.

The UK says murder is only murder if that's what the verdict is after the trial. The US says it's murder even if the verdict comes back as manslaughter or accidental death.

In similar fashion... Break and Enter or Home Invasion. They are one and the same. But Home Invasion is a relatively new term. So stats could show a reduction in B&E but an increase in HI.

Whichever way you look at it though, blaming guns on things is false logic.

If you want to solve crime, taking guns away from law abiding citizens will not do it.

Michael Ross