Consider the following two statements:
- Gun sales have been at record levels for the past two years
- Accidental gun deaths were at an all-time low in 2016, according to the annual “Injury Facts” report from the National Safety Council — at 489, that number is “the lowest since 1903, when record-keeping began” or “about three-tenths of 1 percent of the 146,571 total accidental deaths from all other listed causes”
Doesn’t seem possible? Bob Owens at Bearing Arms explains how they are related:
The data suggests that as more people are obtaining firearms—with the vast majority of them citing “personal protection” as the reason for new purchasers according to industry sources—they are also seeking out better training and education.
This strongly suggests that the gun safety and firearms training efforts spearheaded by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) and National Rifle Association (NRA) are paying off handsomely in terms of imparting safe gun-handling and storage practices.
With regard to personal protection, I’ve previously discussed the relationship between increasing gun ownership and declining gun violence.
A Congressional Research Service study released in August 2015 found that, from 1994 to 2009, gun ownership increased from 192 million firearms to 310 million.
The same CRS study showed that the firearm murder rate has been falling for the past two decades. Pew Research Center has concurred and shown that the rate of nonfatal firearm crime victimizations has also fallen dramatically over the past two decades:
