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.