With the idiots in Toms River and other highly publicized incidents of a child finding an unsecured gun and killing himself or another child, I am not surprised that the question gets asked.  I would guess that there is a higher casualty count from accidental poisonings due to unsecured household chemicals; but it is the gun incidents that get the publicity.  Blame the media for making it seem like kids are killed all the time from AD/ND.

With the idiots in Toms River and other highly publicized incidents of a child finding an unsecured gun and killing himself or another child, I am not surprised that the question gets asked.  I would guess that there is a higher casualty count from accidental poisonings due to unsecured household chemicals; but it is the gun incidents that get the publicity.  Blame the media for making it seem like kids are killed all the time from AD/ND.

There's a higher casualty count from everything. I remember in in 2001 one of our politicians (Sweeny? Gay American?) said 3500 children were killed in firearm accidents per year. NJ 101.5 looked up the number from the CDC and the data from the most recent year available was 10. 10 "children," aged 0-25, in all of the US, including hunting accidents. I've looked up the number since then and seen it get as high as around 200 but it's still the least likely cause of death there is for a child. With firearms in 50% of households, more kids were killed each year by choking on toilet paper. And by every other household item you can think of, although the CDC tries not to track accidental death rates this low. Firearms actually turn out to be the safest thing you have in your house with respect to accidental child deaths that actually occur.

This happened a couple of years ago at my internist's practice. He moved from a solo  to a corporate group practice. One of the questions on the usual forms was about guns in the house. I left it blank. The twit at the desk called me up and said I had to answer all the questions or I couldn't see the doctor.. I then filled in "MYOFB". After reading that response she called out to me in a most officious manner in front of everyone else in the waiting room as to what "MYOFB" meant. I responded that it meant "mind your own f****** business. I saw the doc, told him this s*** was unacceptable and have not been asked since.

"Nope, I don't have any guns, but I have a great collection of razor sharp Japanese swords..."

 

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