The number of privately owned guns in the U.S. is at an all-time high, and rises by about 4.5 million per year.¹ Meanwhile, the nation’s violent crime rate has decreased 38% since 1991.² Below, statistics from 1981 forward are from the National Center for Health Statistics,³ while those prior to 1981 are from the National Safety Council.⁴ The NCHS’ annual numbers, rates and trends of common accidents and selected other causes of death, for the U.S., each state, and the District of Columbia, are available on the NRA-ILA website in spreadsheet format.⁵

• Firearm accident deaths have been decreasing for decades. Since 1930, their annual number has decreased 80%, while the U.S. population has more than doubled and the number of firearms has quintupled. Among children, such deaths have decreased 89% since 1975.
• Firearm accident deaths are at an all-time annual low, while the U.S. population is at an all-time high. Therefore, the firearm accident death rate is at an all-time annual low, 0.2 per 100,000 population, down 94% since the all-time high in 1904.
• Today, the odds are a million to one, against a child in the U.S. dying in a firearm accident.
• Firearms are involved in 0.6% of accidental deaths nationally. Most accidental deaths involve, or are due to, motor vehicles (39%), poisoning (18%), falls (16%), suffocation (5%), drowning (2.9%), fires (2.8%), medical mistakes (2.2%), environmental factors (1.2%), and bicycles and tricycles (0.7%). Among children: motor vehicles (45%), suffocation (18%), drowning (14%), fires (9%), bicycles and tricycles (2.4%), falls (2%), poisoning (1.6%),environmental factors (1.5%), and medical mistakes (0.8%).

Education decreases accidents. Voluntary firearms safety training, not government intrusion, has decreased firearms accidents. NRA firearm safety programs are conducted by more than 51,000 NRA Certified Instructors nationwide. Youngsters learn firearm safety in NRA programs offered through civic groups such as the Boy Scouts, Jaycees, the American Legion, and schools.⁶ NRA’s Eddie Eagle GunSafe program teaches children pre-K through 6^th grade that if they see a firearm without supervision, they should "STOP! Don’t Touch. Leave The Area. Tell An Adult." Since 1988, the program has been used by 25,000 schools, civic groups, and law enforcement agencies to reach more than 20 million children.⁷

The "cars and guns" myth. "Gun control" supporters claim that driver licensing and auto registration caused motor vehicle accident deaths to decline between 1968-1991, and that gun registration and gun owner licensing would reduce gun accidents. They ask, "We register drivers and license cars, so why not guns and gun owners?"

Motor vehicle registration and driver licensing laws were not imposed to reduce, and did not reduce, accidents. Most such laws were imposed between the world wars, but motor vehicle accident deaths increased sharply after 1930 and didn’t begin declining until 1970. Despite more regulation of vehicles and drivers, vehicle accident deaths have increased 6% in the last decade.

Between 1968-1991, the years cited by the anti-gunners, the motor vehicle accident death rate dropped only 37% with vehicle registration and driver licensing, while the firearm accident death rate dropped 50% without gun registration and gun owner licensing. The anti-gunners want registration and licensing not for safety, but to erect the record-keeping apparatus necessary to make confiscation of privately owned firearms achievable in the future. The first leader of Handgun Control, Inc. (since renamed Brady Campaign) said that registration was the second step in the group’s three-step plan for the confiscation of all handguns.⁸

Moreover, the purchase and ownership of arms is a right protected by the constitution, whereas operating a vehicle on public roads is a privilege. A license and registration are not required to merely own a vehicle or operate it on private property, only to do so on public roads. Similarly, a license and permit are not typically required to buy or own a gun, or to keep a gun at home, but are usually required when hunting or carrying a gun for protection in public places.

Lies about children and guns. Brady Campaign and Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) have claimed that 12 children die from gun accidents every day, and 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has claimed that 13 children are killed with guns every day. The HELP (Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan) Network (which is dedicated to "changing society’s attitude toward guns so that it becomes socially unacceptable for private citizens to have handguns") put the figure at "an average of 9 children" daily. Other "gun control" advocates have varyingly claimed 14 per day (or 5,000 yearly or one every 90 seconds). Some count anyone under the age of 24 as a "child," to get even higher numbers.⁹ Anti-gunners add the relatively small number of firearm-related deaths among children to the much larger number of deaths among juveniles and young adults, and dishonestly call the total "children." In fact, on average there is just under one firearm-related death among children per day, including one accidental death every 5.8 days.

"Gun control" supporters point to a study claiming that so-called "Child Access Prevention" (CAP) laws (which make it a crime, under some circumstances, to leave a gun accessible to a child who obtains and misuses it), imposed in 12 states between 1989-1993, decreased fatal firearm accidents among children.¹⁰ The study was produced by people from the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, a group active in the HELP Network. The study’s flaws: Firearm accident deaths among children began declining in the mid-1970s, not in 1989, when "CAP" laws were first imposed. Also, such accidents have decreased nationwide, not only in "CAP" states. And, also in 1989, NRA’s Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program was introduced nationwide.

GOA Files Blockbuster Brief Before The U.S. Supreme Court!
-- Pratt hits the airwaves, selling the pro-gun position in the court of public opinion

Gun Owners of America filed its brief yesterday before the U.S. Supreme Court in defense of Dick Anthony Heller, who was denied the right to own a gun in the nation's capital as a result of the draconian gun ban which exists there.

In this hard-hitting brief, GOA takes aim at the weak arguments put forth by both the DC government and the Bush Administration. But more than that, GOA examines the favorable text and context of the Second Amendment in great detail, while also documenting the pro-gun history that formed the backdrop of its inclusion into the Bill of Rights.

The GOA brief even presents the greatest reason for the right to keep and bear arms, stating that "the Second Amendment right is to be exercised as a last resort to guard against tyranny."

GOA's Executive Director, Larry Pratt, has hit the airwaves recently, appearing on many talk shows and in newspapers to differentiate the GOA approach from the sullied road the President has taken. Pratt, along with other GOA spokesmen, has argued that the "bomb" which Bush's Solicitor General dropped last month (when he submitted his brief) would destroy the Second Amendment.

After all, the Bush administration's approach is that any and all guns can be controlled or banned if a federal court finds that to be "reasonable."

The GOA approach differs from many of the briefs that are being submitted to the high Court. For example, one brief which is being submitted by several legislators highlights Congress' position on the Second Amendment over the years. This can be a useful approach, to be sure.

But while the congressional brief concedes that the DC Council may have gone too far, it also says it's appropriate for the legislative branch to pass restrictions upon our Second Amendment rights -- a stance which is, in principle, not too different from the one the U.S. Solicitor General has filed.

That's where the GOA brief draws a "bright line" in the sand by repeating the amendment's wording "shall not be infringed" over and over again. For example, our brief states:

      [T]he argument that "the right of the people" is subject to reasonable regulation and restriction tramples on the very words of the Second Amendment, reading the phrase -- "shall not be infringed" -- as if it read "shall be subject only to reasonable regulation to achieve public safety."

The GOA brief can be read online here. Several pro-gun groups joined GOA, including Gun Owners Foundation, Gun Owners of California, Maryland Shall Issue, Inc., Virginia Citizens Defense League, among others.

You will remember that last month, GOA alerted you to Rep. Virgil Goode's efforts to get President Bush to pull his brief before the Court. Thanks to your efforts, Rep. Goode has almost 50 congressional signatories on his letter. While the letter has already been sent to the President, Goode continues to solicit even more signatories and is sending those names to Bush as well. (GOA will provide you further updates and a list of the congressman who have cosigned the letter in an upcoming alert.)

Gun Owners of America is committing a significant portion of our available resources as we are fighting this battle in the courts, in the Congress and in the media.

Date:

From:

To:

Dear Representative                   :

I’m an active voter and law-abiding gun owner living in your House district. I encourage you to vote AGAINST HB 247, Rep. David Litvack's "dating violence" bill. This is a backdoor gun-control bill, because it would enable someone you’ve merely dated a few times to easily take out a domestic-violence protective order against you even if you haven’t committed or threatened a single act of violence – and this type of high-powered protective order empowers the judge issuing the order to prohibit you from possessing a firearm based on the most specious of evidence. Domestic-violence protective orders should be reserved for cases of actual domestic violence (such as spouse abuse) and should not be extended to vaguely defined "dating relationships", as HB 247 would do.

Under the terms of HB 247, it’s easy to envision a jilted dating partner "getting even" by taking out a "dating violence" protective order based, for example, on the claim that their "ex" phoned or e-mailed them too frequently. The "ex" may then be required to surrender his or her firearms to the authorities without a trial.

I believe that any bill that allows a person’s Second Amendment rights to be revoked on such flimsy grounds deserves to be defeated.

As one of your constituents, I ask that you please contact me after the voting and let me know how you voted on HB 247.

Thanks for taking time to consider my opinion on this matter.