Bigger Danger to Young Children? 5 Gallon Buckets or Guns?

By Dean Weingarten

Danger to Young Children? 5 Gallon Buckets or Guns?
Danger to Young Children? 5 Gallon Buckets or Guns?
Dean Weingarten
Dean Weingarten

Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)- Which are more dangerous for young children, five gallon buckets or guns?

Five gallon buckets result in a small number of fatal accidents for young children; about 27 a year.   The accidents are not tracked as rigorously as those with firearms are.  I found a study that tracked them for six years.  From a pediatrics study:

 Analysis of Consumer Product Safety Commission data revealed 160 bucket-related drownings for the years 1984 through 1989, representing a mortality rate of 0.367 per 100 000 persons (younger than 2 years old) per year in the United States.

I have not found numbers for bucket drownings for later years, but the total drownings have dropped slightly from 1990 to 2005-2009.   In 1990 there were 3,979 total drownings.   In 2005-2009 the average was 3,533.   In 2011 there were 3,556.   From 1990, the total number has dropped about 11 percent.

Drownings of children under five were fairly consistent from 1999 to 2010, so it seems reasonable to believe that drowning in buckets have dropped about as much as the general figures.   That would put five gallon bucket drownings at .89 x 27, or 24 per year.    The number is small enough that no one seems to track exactly how many child drownings occur with five gallon buckets.   It is a rare event, but it happens.

 Consumer Product Safety Commission data revealed 160 bucket-related drownings
Consumer Product Safety Commission data revealed 160 bucket-related drownings

 

The number of children under the age of five that die in gun accidents is tracked more rigorously.   This is in part because gun accidents are tracked as a separate number, and part because bucket drownings are counted as part of total drownings.    The latest number of fatal firearms accidents per year for children under the age of five was 19, recorded in 2007.    Again, this is a very rare event.   So while both firearms and five gallon buckets are involved in fatal accidents for young children, and the numbers are tiny, five gallon buckets seem to be more likely to be involved in a fatal accident.

To be fair, both numbers are so small as to be statistically insignificant.  In a country of over 300 million people, these fall into the “noise” category.    That does not help if it is your child that is injured or dies.   In nearly all of these cases, it is adults who made the bad decisions.   The vast majority of the children drowned in buckets were left unattended; the vast majority of the young children killed in firearms accidents were shot by an adult firing the gun.

In comparison, for 2007,  all fatal firearm accidents for children 0-14 totaled 65, and all drownings for children 0-14 totaled 739.    Fatal firearm accidents for children 1-14 have been fairly flat since 2001, averaging 61 per year.

Drownings account for over 11 times as many accidental deaths as firearms do for children 14 and under.

Swimming pools, considered by themselves, are  six times as likely as firearms to be involved in a fatal accident  for children under the age of 15.   There are 30 times as many guns in the United States as there are swimming pools.

c2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included. Link to Gun Watch

 

About Dean Weingarten;

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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Phil

Yup, a kid in my neighborhood died that way. It had about 2 inches of rain water in it.
I don’t know anybody, let alone a kid who has Ever been shot. I have been shooting for 35 years!

John Carr

Sooo, that’s why they took away my bucket.