Accidental Shootings At All-Time Low While Gun Sales At All-Time High

posted on March 22, 2017

It will likely come as a surprise to gun-ban groups who love to use accidental shootings to push their schemes, but a new report shows that accidental shootings continued to fall even as gun purchases were at an all-time high.

A Washington Examiner report quotes a National Safety Council finding that there were 489 accidental gun deaths in 2015—the lowest since 1903 when record keeping began. It was also a 17 percent drop from the previous year.

Interestingly, a representative of the National Shooting Sports Foundation put the number in context. The 489 number represents about three-tenths of 1 percent of the 146,571 accidental deaths from all other listed causes that year. 

At the same time, about 23 million guns were sold that year, an all-time high. With far more guns and far fewer accidents, it seems that most gun owners are being quite careful with their firearms.

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