# Do firearm accidents cause more deaths than mass shootings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 21, 2016, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-firearm-accidents-cause-more-deaths-than-mass-shootings/760456 "2016-07-21T00:17:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-firearm-accidents-cause-more-deaths-than-mass-shootings/760456/21 "2016-07-23T00:43:59Z")
> [@GWF\_Hefel](#): > > Don’t forget professionals at work! > > When I was in the infantry, we enjoyed reading the base newspaper on some days. About once every three months there would be a short article about an MP accidentally shooting themselves or another MP when they cleared their weapon after coming off duty. They really shouldn’t have been such hard-asses to the grunts! > > But it did make me wonder how your typical civilian survives with weapons lying around the house. I survive just fine. But I don’t leave my guns “lying around the house”, they are stored in a gun safe. I also follow the 4 basic gun rules as does my wife and children. The kids have been taught that guns, misused, are dangerous and can kill. They’ve been out to the range and have been target shooting. They aren’t afraid of firearms and they have been taught to safely handle them. When we clean our weapons we check that they are unloaded and ammunition is put away. There is nothing more heartwarming to a parent who enjoys shooting with his family to ask Junior to grab the pistol to shoot next. You then watch him walk over to the weapon, drop the magazine and rack the slide to make sure the pistol is unloaded before handing it to me. If the basics are drilled into a person from the very beginning and followed religiously then the chance of an accident is very limited. People survive just fine in the civilian world with firearms if they treat them with respect and follow the rules. ---
**Author:** ![Underneath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/dfb087/32.png) [@Underneath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Underneath)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-firearm-accidents-cause-more-deaths-than-mass-shootings/760456/22 "2016-07-25T02:55:18Z")
A friend’s family of mine owned guns, hunted, etc. Growing up, when I visited them (pretty much every day) they would drill me on gun safety anytime a gun came out of their safe. I learned to check the breach, remove magazines, and never point even a “safe” weapon at someone. 20 years later I owned my first gun, and I remember every one of the lessons about safety from my friend and his father. Thanks for teaching your family about gun safety, and please remember to teach anyone else that may be around. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-firearm-accidents-cause-more-deaths-than-mass-shootings/760456.md?page=1)