Gun violence has received no shortage of attention. But one bright spot has gotten much less: the number of accidental shooting deaths has steadily declined.
There were 489 people killed in unintentional shootings in the U.S. in 2015, the most recent year for which data are available. That was down from 824 deaths in 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Taking into account population growth over that time, the rate fell 48 percent.
Experts attribute the decline to a mix of gun safety education programs, state laws regulating gun storage in homes and a drop in the number of households that have guns. While the improvement occurred in every state, those with the most guns and the fewest laws continue to have the most accidental shooting deaths.
The gains were overshadowed by an overall rise in gun deaths driven by the top two causes: suicides and homicides. Accidents made up just 1.3 percent of the 36,247 U.S. shooting deaths in 2015.
Of the 489 people killed in accidental shootings in 2015, more than 85 percent were male, and nearly 27 percent of those were ages 15 to 24. The rate for that group – 5 deaths per 100,000 people – was more than triple the national average. Men between 25 and 34 were the next-most vulnerable group.
The rates for males under 15 was far lower, perhaps due to so-called child access prevention laws, which allow criminal or civil charges to be filed against a gun owner if a child gains access to a firearm that is not securely stored.
Twenty-seven states now have such laws, with 14 making improper gun storage a criminal offense.
In Hawaii and Massachusetts, a person could face criminal charges even if the firearm is unloaded. Massachusetts, which has the lowest rate of unintentional deaths nationwide, is the only state to require that all firearms be locked up.
In California, a 2013 law made it a third-degree misdemeanor to knowingly store a loaded firearm in a place where an unsupervised child could have access to it.
But experts say such laws are probably only part of the story behind the statistics.
Jon S. Vernick, co-director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said the decline in unintentional shooting deaths has lasted at least three decades. In 1981, for example, the U.S. total was 1,871, nearly four times the total in recent years.
Vernick said that a decline in the share of homes with guns probably plays a major role in the decrease. While Americans continue to purchase guns at all-time highs, they are concentrated in fewer households.
In a report published in 2015, researchers at the University of Chicago found that 31 percent of households reported having a firearm in 2014, down from about 48 percent in 1977 to 1980.
Hunting accidents may also be down, he said, as the share of Americans who hunt appears to have declined. States that have high rates of gun ownership and strong traditions of hunting have the highest rates of accidental deaths.
From 2006 to 2015, Louisiana had 321 gun deaths and the highest average annual rate by a significant margin – 0.71 deaths per 100,000 people. Rounding out the top 10 states were Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Arkansas, Wyoming, Montana, Kentucky, Alaska and Tennessee. Of those, Mississippi, Kentucky and Tennessee have gun storage laws.
The accidental gun death rate in Louisiana was more than 25 times that in Massachusetts.
