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In the United States, unintentional firearm injury is the fourth leading cause of death among infants and is the top cause of death among children and adolescents aged 1–17 years (www.cdc.gov)

submitted 1 month ago by yogthos@lemmy.ml to c/usa@lemmy.ml

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[–] CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 3 points 1 month ago

From this report:

Approximately 30 million children are living in homes with firearms as of 2021.
There were 1262 unintentional firearm injury deaths among children under the age of 17 across 18 years. Apparently, there were 122,447 such deaths by all means including firearms in the same age group and time period. So, the firearm deaths being considered account for 1.010%.
Only 34 of these deaths were found to have occurred if the weapon was stored locked somehow. That's 2.694% of the firearm deaths or 0.028% of the total.
Only 28 of these deaths were found to have occurred if the weapon was stored unloaded. That's 2.219% of the firearm deaths or 0.023% of the total.
The report emphasizes that firearms should be stored locked and unloaded, but does not provide a number of deaths for that particular condition.

Given the context that there are a lot of children living in homes with firearms and that there are a lot of unintentional injury death of any type among children, the findings suggest that Americans are doing a good job storing their firearms, even if many children live in homes where firearms are stored loaded and unlocked.