Second Amendment
The Freakonomics of Guns in the Home
Many parents refuse to allow their children to play in the home of a family which owns a gun. On the other hand, they’ll happily let their children swim in a neighbor’s pool. This isn’t the result of rational risk assessment, but a reaction to fearmongering by anti-gun “experts.” Compare the two:
- There is one drowning of a child each year for every 11,000 residential pools.
- There is one accidental gun death of a child for every 1,000,000+ guns in America.
Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? While 175 accidental deaths per year is a tragedy (and a reminder to teach children respect for firearms) the hysteria over child gun deaths is all out of proportion to the statistics.
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You know, assuming that no house has more than one pool and that the average gun-owning house actually owns 91 guns or more, the math could still work out in favor of pools!
If that were an accurate statistic, I might agree. But the average gun owner has 6.6 guns in his or her home. According to a study by the Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health:
“Number of guns: The actual number of guns reported in our survey varied depending on how the question was asked and who answered the question. Individual firearm owners (n = 702) reported owning an average of 6.6 (95% confidence interval (CI) 5.2 to 7.9, median 3) working firearms.”
Source: http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/13/1/15#SEC2
The assertion that the average gun owner owns 91 firearms tells me you must not know a lot of gun owners. . .
Most of the people I know own weapons, and only two of them have 90+. Both are prior military officers and antique gun collectors who keep them in hyper-secure vaults in their home.
Sarcasm doesn’t come across well over the Internet.
Plus the study was clearly flawed if it didn’t take into account that drowning deaths may have been caused by children fleeing in terror after discovering vast arsenals in their friends’ houses.
Adrian-
Ack, sorry! I’ve just seen so many flawed gun stats cited that it didn’t seem that incredible to me.
“Plus the study was clearly flawed if it didn’t take into account that drowning deaths may have been caused by children fleeing in terror after discovering vast arsenals in their friends’ houses.”
Actually, that sarcasm came across great!
What’s your political viewpoint, btw? I’ve taken from some of your comments that it’s from a Center-Left Christian position. Would that be accurate?
Most of my positions are fairly left. I’m pro-ACLU, pro-gun rights, pro-progressive taxation, pro free-trade, pro single-payer socialized health care. I’m fairly happy with my Rep, Ed Markey, D-MA.
Adrian-
Well I’m very glad to have you here. It’s good to have you and my buddy The Liberal Media as fact-checkers. . . And just to keep the pot stirred.
What part of MA are you in? I spent a semester living in the Berkshires — lovely scenery, unusual people.
Grew up in a suburb of Boston, going to school in DC now.
I hear DC is very cool these days. . . When I was considering undergrad schools, it was still kind of a hole. I’m considering several schools right now for my PhD work (if I continue on to it). None of them are in places as cool as DC, however. One is in Canada, another in Minnesota. Harvard is my #1 choice, because they have a fantastic Ukrainian research center.
Anyway, talk with you later.
Clearly today’s deeper swimming pools could not have been anticipated by the Founders. We must, therefore, ban handguns.
I’ve seen worse logic to the point.