NBC Right Now/KNDO/KNDU Tri-Cities, Yakima, WA |
Pro-gun fanatics love to downplay the number of negligent discharges. One of the ways they do this is to cite the numbers of deaths and dividing by the total number of gun owners in the country. This is misleading for several reasons. The number of deaths due to negligence is only a fraction of those wounded, and that is only a tiny fraction of those gravely affected, which include those doing the shooting as well as family and friends.
Even after calculating all that, we still have only a small percentage of the true number of negligent uses of guns. If we use the same standard they use for DGU calculations, it would be only 5%, the 95% being those in which no one was hurt and no record was made of the incident.
The obvious problem is when you ask gun owners if they've used their gun defensively you get a lot of volunteers. Not so when you ask if they've had a negligent discharge. That's not to say gun owners are particularly dishonest, I believe that description is limited to the gun-rights advocates who have axes to grind, no, it's just human nature. People are reluctant to admit their mistakes.
What's your opinion? Do you still think negligent discharges are so rare?
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