The Rangemaster October 2009 Newsletter is now posted.

This issue has a few things worth reading. One is a fantastic dry fire regimen which I’m about to print out and keep in my practice area (it mirrors the skills I learned in the Combined Skills course). The other is discussing some data. One of those I think is well worth sharing so I’m going to reprint it here:

The National Safety Council, chartered by an act of Congress, is a nongovernment, not-for-profit, public service organization with a mission to educate and influence people to prevent accidental injury and death. They collect and report the facts about accidental injuries and deaths from all sources. Recently, the NSC released data from 2007. Here are some facts:

Accidental Firearms Fatalities are at an All-time Low. Firearms are involved in fewer than 1 percent of all accidental fatalities in the United States. In a side by side comparison with other forms of injury, firearms have the lowest rate of accidents.

Public firearms safety education projects, like Hunter Safety Courses, Handgun Permit Courses, NRA First Steps programs, and similar educational programs are credited with contributing to the decline in firearms accidents. Firearm related fatalities in the U.S. have been decreasing consistently since record keeping began in 1903 and have reduced dramatically in the last 20 years.

During the last decade, the number of unintentional firearm related deaths for children 14 years of age and under has decreased by 61%, and by 77% in the last 20 years. Firearms are involved in 1% of accidental deaths among children 14 years of age and under, the lowest cause of accidental fatality.

Firearm related accidental deaths in the home are down 50% from 1987 levels. In the entire United States in 2007 there were only 400 accidental firearm related deaths occurring in the home, in a population of 300,000,000 people. In contrast, in 2007 about 1,000 people drowned in their own homes and another 11,600 died in accidental falls in the home. Removing bathtubs and stairs from your home would be more prudent than removing the firearms.

Hunting is a sport deeply involved with firearms, but it is one of the safest sports. The number of injuries reported for participants in various sports in 2007 included:

• Baseball – 167,661
• Bowling – 21,819
• Football – 455,193
• Golf – 36,886
• Soccer – 198,679
• Volleyball – 57,039
• HUNTING – 916

Thus, one is 22 times more likely to be injured while bowling than while hunting. Remember that the next time somebody tries to tell you how unsafe it is to have a gun in the home.

For the purposes of record keeping, the US Justice Department defines “violent crime” as Murder, Aggravated Assault, Forcible Rape, Robbery, and Kidnapping. The Justice Dept recently released figures for 2008, indicating there were 4.9 million of these offenses during last year. That is roughly a rate of one violent crime per 60 residents.

Another set of data provided in the newsletter is about where attacks occur. Some people think it’s sufficient to have a gun at home, or to just keep a gun in the car. While that’s certainly good, the likelihood of needing it in those locations isn’t as high as other locations:

To illustrate, here are some statistics from the United States Department of Justice, looking at Robbery Locations for the year 2007:

• Street – 43.8%
• Commercial- 13.9%
• Residence- 15.2%
• Banks- 2.1%
• Gas station- 2.6%
• Miscellaneous- 16.8%

So, you are almost three times as likely to be robbed on the street than at home, and in the home only accounts for 1 robbery in 6. Similar patterns exist for rape, aggravated assaults, etc. In fact, good locks, an alarm system, and proper lighting can reduce your risk of violent crime at home to very low levels. Once you leave your home, though, you have no control over such items. The one thing you can control is having your emergency safety equipment with you, so you can respond to emergencies that occur away from home. Remember, the gun you left at home won’t help you anywhere else.