Kids have been encountering unlocked/unsupervised firearms almost since the first one was invented, when they were blued steel, stainless, black, whatever. Let’s not pretend that it’s the color of it that attracts them to it. Unless, of course, you’d like to make the case that there are more child-related accidental firearms deaths in the past, oh, let’s say 20 years since brightly colored guns became a thing.
To be clear, I’m not calling for regulation. I’m saying responsible firearm owners shouldn’t buy guns that are likely to attract toddler attention, at least if they could conceivably have kids at home. And that a gun enthusiast organization that cared about its member’s health would say as much.
Instead, we get radio silence from the NRA.
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Unsafe or irresponsible people kill people. Which we can see is the NRA’s core membership: the NRA loves mayhem. It leads to newspaper coverage, calls for gun control and a jizzed up membership. I mean you have to be pretty stupid or rather gullible to lack suspicion of a nonprofit that pays its leaders 5 or more times more than the competition. That’s the NRA base.
America’s armed and adorable toddlers. (Last link has sound: beware.)
Do you have any evidence that colored firearms present greater risk of injury or death of children?
Are you speaking hypothetically here? Or are you relating actual recent experiences?
[QUOTE=Measure For Measure]
To be clear, I’m not calling for regulation. I’m saying responsible firearm owners shouldn’t buy guns that are likely to attract toddler attention, at least if they could conceivably have kids at home.
[/quote]
Sounds reasonable to me.
Well, of course, there are more child-related accidental firearms deaths now than there were 20 years ago, if only because there are way more children and more guns. I don’t think that’s the argument you were trying to make, though.
Bright colors aren’t the only thing young children find attractive, of course. And once children are old enough to know what a gun is, their temptation to play with it is likely to be based less on its color than its function. However, very young children are attracted to brightly-colored toy-like objects: I don’t know why you’re twisting yourself in knots to try to deny this fairly basic fact.
Like I said, I don’t have any problem with reasonable law-abiding people owning guns, but I’m starting to wonder about shrill knee-jerk oversensitive types like you guys. We’re talking mere disapproval of a purely cosmetic feature here, and y’all are acting like it’s another assault weapons ban in the works. Not impressed.
Women police officers have been carrying pistols since they were allowed to do more than pass out parking tickets and direct traffic. I wonder how they feel about non-traditionally colored pistols as their off-duty weapons.
You are wrong.
Feel free to look up stats from CDC (for consistency, I included the age group 15-19 because historical data isn’t able to segregate out specific age groups. When running the data for just 0-17 on the more recent year, the trend holds). Here are stats for fatal unintentional firearm related incidents from 1999 to 2014:
1999 - 2014, United States
Unintentional Firearm Deaths and Rates per 100,000
All Races, Both Sexes, Ages 0 to 19
ICD-10 Codes: W32-W34
Year Number of
Deaths Population*** Crude
Rate
1999 214 80,039,972 0.27
2000 193 80,473,265 0.24
2001 182 80,906,541 0.22
2002 167 81,173,400 0.21
2003 151 81,425,816 0.19
2004 143 81,754,354 0.17
2005 173 82,005,260 0.21
2006 154 82,324,418 0.19
2007 138 82,749,431 0.17
2008 123 83,118,264 0.15
2009 114 83,280,391 0.14
2010 134 83,267,556 0.16
2011 140 82,840,576 0.17
2012 110 82,503,131 0.13
2013 124 82,296,428 0.15
2014 106 82,135,602 0.13
Both in total numbers and as a rate of population, figures show a significant trend. Of course, the claim was 20 years, so if we go back a bit further:
1981 - 1998, United States
Unintentional Firearm Deaths and Rates per 100,000
All Races, Both Sexes, Ages 0 to 19
ICD-9 Codes: E922
Year Number of
Deaths Population*** Crude
Rate
1981 604 71,793,753 0.84
1982 550 71,292,127 0.77
1983 504 70,856,742 0.71
1984 552 70,413,696 0.78
1985 519 70,261,185 0.74
1986 472 70,347,764 0.67
1987 467 70,557,551 0.66
1988 543 70,947,318 0.77
1989 567 71,354,692 0.79
1990 541 71,877,322 0.75
1991 551 72,515,411 0.76
1992 501 73,451,149 0.68
1993 526 74,570,487 0.71
1994 512 75,678,637 0.68
1995 440 76,645,725 0.57
1996 376 77,624,071 0.48
1997 306 78,485,092 0.39
1998 262 79,320,164 0.33
Would you look at that, the trend continues. You can look at non-fatal incidents too, though the data doesn’t go quite so far back:
Unintentional Firearm Gunshot Nonfatal Injuries and Rates per 100,000
2001 - 2014, United States
All Races, Both Sexes, Ages 0 to 19
Disposition: All Cases
Year Number of
injuries Population Crude
Rate Age-Adjusted
Rate**
2001 5,091 80,906,541 6.29 6.25
2002 4,136 81,173,400 5.09 5.03
2003 3,611 81,425,816 4.43 4.37
2004 3,950 81,754,354 4.83 4.72
2005 3,547 82,005,260 4.33 4.18
2006 3,087 82,324,418 3.75 3.62
2007 4,165 82,749,431 5.03 4.82
2008 3,998 83,118,264 4.81 4.60
2009 3,588 83,280,391 4.31 4.10
2010 3,019 83,267,556 3.63 3.50
2011 2,886 82,840,576 3.48 3.41
2012 2,683* 82,503,131 3.25 3.19
2013 3,127 82,296,428 3.80 3.73
2014 2,315 82,135,602 2.82 2.79
Is that the same knee jerk reaction that just knows you’re right, when you’re actually quite wrong? Facts aren’t a cosmetic feature.
So again:
Absolutely, if you include among “children” the group of teenagers who make up the vast majority of all firearms-related deaths and injuries for people under 18.
But that’s not really the population I was thinking of when I expressed concern about making guns look like toys.
Ya know, pink guns could be the solution to all those “Constitutional Carry” nimrods. Pass a law that says all guns sold in the US, and all accessories for them must be bright, Day-Glo pink. No exceptions and no grand-fathering in of old guns/parts. Let’s see how many of those jerks parade around carrying a pink AR-15. My bet is “None.”
I would take that bet. Plenty of people would have no issue with open carrying a pink AR-15 (and not just women or members of Pink Pistols). Hell, I would do it just for the humor of the situation - especially if I could get a matching tie for the rifle.
Tie and spats!
So rather than take the opportunity to clarify your non-standard use of English words, you avoid again the chance to present any evidence of your claim.
Here are the stats for Unintentional Firearm Deaths and Rates per 100,000; All Races, Both Sexes, Ages 0 to 19; broken up by age brackets, from 1981 to 2014:
Age 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
0-4 0.3 0.26 0.23 0.19 0.24 0.19 0.2 0.23 0.23 0.18 0.12 0.18 0.15 0.17 0.1 0.09 0.1 0.1 0.06 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.08 0.12 0.07 0.09 0.1 0.08 0.12 0.14 0.15 0.15 0.12
5-9 0.4 0.51 0.28 0.4 0.35 0.33 0.38 0.29 0.33 0.31 0.22 0.26 0.2 0.13 0.16 0.14 0.14 0.17 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1 0.06 0.06 0.05 0.08 0.03 0.07 0.07
10-14 1 0.85 0.88 1.07 1.04 0.87 0.88 1.12 1.02 0.85 0.91 0.72 0.73 0.66 0.67 0.48 0.48 0.34 0.28 0.24 0.19 0.16 0.17 0.16 0.17 0.11 0.12 0.14 0.1 0.13 0.14 0.11 0.12 0.06
15-19 1.49 1.36 1.35 1.4 1.29 1.27 1.18 1.44 1.62 1.72 1.88 1.65 1.84 1.83 1.41 1.26 0.85 0.71 0.63 0.53 0.54 0.52 0.46 0.38 0.46 0.46 0.33 0.27 0.3 0.33 0.3 0.24 0.26 0.27
Total 3.19 2.98 2.74 3.06 2.92 2.66 2.64 3.08 3.2 3.06 3.13 2.81 2.92 2.79 2.34 1.97 1.57 1.32 1.06 0.96 0.9 0.81 0.74 0.69 0.83 0.73 0.64 0.57 0.54 0.63 0.66 0.53 0.6 0.52
So what population were you talking about? If you look at all age groups individually, for all years presented, there is a single year where the rate as compared to 20 years prior increased. That would be for the age 0-4 group, comparing the rate from 1991 to 2011 where the rate went from 0.12 to 0.14. In raw numbers that would be 24 incidents to 29 incidents. All other years in all other age groups for data available showed decreases. Here’s the summary to compare the rate from the given year to the rate with a 20 year lookback:
Age 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
0-4 -0.22 -0.2 -0.19 -0.11 -0.12 -0.12 -0.11 -0.13 -0.15 -0.06 0.02 -0.03 0 -0.05
5-9 -0.31 -0.44 -0.21 -0.33 -0.27 -0.24 -0.28 -0.23 -0.27 -0.26 -0.14 -0.23 -0.13 -0.06
10-14 -0.81 -0.69 -0.71 -0.91 -0.87 -0.76 -0.76 -0.98 -0.92 -0.72 -0.77 -0.61 -0.61 -0.6
15-19 -0.95 -0.84 -0.89 -1.02 -0.83 -0.81 -0.85 -1.17 -1.32 -1.39 -1.58 -1.41 -1.58 -1.56
So to summarize, you were wrong with your original claim that was about children, and you’re wrong again when you isolate age brackets of children. Let’s go for try #3:
*The cite does note: Rates based on 20 or fewer deaths may be unstable. Use with caution. Many of the figures above are based on very low numbers of events so the caveat applies. In the above, there are 135 records and 31 of them are based on a rate based on 20 or fewer deaths.
Not for ACCIDENTAL firearm death.
Thanks for this, I picked up on it too. The logic and arguments against the black version of a rifle didn’t hold up. That part of of the assault weapons ban is often openly mocked, even around here. Now we have criticism of the pink version of a pistol. Does anyone expect a different result?
I can imagine the gun control advocates head will explode over one of these. That’s bad news for the bad guys. Mind tricks don’t work in real life, but this will. 
Add a Gay Pride rainbow emblem and I think your idea is brilliant. On the other hand, I personally would love to have a Hello Kitty AR-15 (unfortunately, there are too many teenagers in the family needing things like freshman tuition, car insurance, and food), so there would be people like me walking around with those weapons.
Bone - that’s some nice data. I perceive a break in the 0-4 series in ~1989-1994, after which accidental deaths declined. I wonder whether this is related to the tapering off of the crack and crack house epidemic.
“Do you have any evidence that colored firearms present greater risk of injury or death of children?”
I have evidence that colored guns on occasion have been mistaken for toys by children. Mind you, that doesn’t imply that all pink guns are dangerous. It’s pretty simple actually: don’t buy toy guns that look like real guns. Don’t buy real guns that look like toy guns. Responsible firearm owners and their advocates should be able to get behind that, even in the absence of empirical evidence. Because it’s patently unsafe.
Of course empirical evidence exists. To show the preceding, you don’t need to do a multivariate analysis and if you did you would almost certainly run into a risk of false negatives. You only need examples. There are all manner of dangerous proposals (e.g. bungee jumping with turkey twine) that don’t have statistical evidence of risk.
Here’s one from 2013: Three-Year-Old Boy Accidentally Shot In The Head While Playing with Pink Gun He Thought Was a Toy. I assume Kimstu wasn’t familiar with this case when she made her point. She just applied common sense.
I am sure there are unfortunate anecdotes where children are injured or killed because of mistakes or negligence with firearms. There are also similar incidents involving adults and black colored firearms. The problem is that both you and she have concluded based on “common sense” that bright colored firearms are inherently more dangerous. Yet when looking at the data, we can see that firearm deaths of children has generally declined contrary to what Kimstu stated. And what I find even worse than making a mistake, is the complete lack of effort in validating the claims that were made.
That being said, I do think it’s important to teach the difference between toys and real firearms. But if my kids wanted a pink or purple or blue or green rifle, I’d be glad to get them one. It doesn’t make them any more or less dangerous and it could encourage interest. Getting kids passionate about anything is an uphill battle so if a bit of color helps that’s fine by me. I’d probably do the paint job myself since it seems like it would be a fun project.
Sure, you can have a hypothesis but if it turned out that after looking at the data bungee jumping with turkey twine was actually more safe or no different than traditional methods, would you reevaluate your stance?
Aside from the fact that you seem to be equating an anecdote with data, do you think the problem with that story was that the gun was pink, or that it was left unsecured where a 7 and 3 year old could access it? Because there’s only one course of action that I would take to prevent that tragedy and it’s not leaving an unsecured *black colored *gun where a 7 and 3 year old could access it.
Of course. But if you’re dealing with rare events, it’s more likely that the data would be inconclusive.
We haven’t done a multivariate analysis. But if we did, it’s unlikely to pick up such small effects. Statisticians speak of the power of a test or estimator. When you are dealing with very rare events, you will have low power tests.
I hope I’m getting this concept across. While it was appropriate and interesting for you to present that data (and I’m guessing it refuted kimstu’s claim, since the decline in accident rates among the 0-4 set was sharp enough that it probably wasn’t outweighed by a greater population), it’s highly unlikely that you were going to tease statistically significant relationships out of noisy data.
Safety experts speak of layered defense strategies. So you do both. There’s no contradiction between not buying guns that look like toys and keeping them secure from kids.
One problem with modern gun enthusiasts is that they attack the very concept of a layered defense strategy. Not merely ignore. That’s unusual. You can see it with the emphasis on the 3 rules of gun safety. Pedagogically, the 3 rules are laudable. But to say that gun safety ends with the 3 rules is irresponsible. AFAIK, only gun enthusiasts take such a wacko stance and I maintain it’s because they are marinated in extremist literature. These are people that are far more concerned with protecting an idea than protecting their lives, health or personal safety.
As for anecdotes, they provide firm evidence of potential risk. They don’t provide evidence of substantial risk.
As I indicated, small occurrences in certain years may be unstable.
First - who knows what the claim was because she was using English words in non-standard ways and seems to not want to clarify her actual claim. Second - given any common understanding of English, her claim was refuted. Safety experts speak of layered defense strategies. So you do both. There’s no contradiction between not buying guns that look like toys and keeping them secure from kids.
First, it’s 4 rules for adults, and 3 rules for children. Second, no one takes this so called wacko stance that you suggest, though if the rules were followed nearly all incidents of unintentional injury or death would be avoided. Third, your constant denigration of your make believe boogeyman is tiresome.
What’s being attacked isn’t the concept of layered defense, what’s being attacked are factual errors. Have you concluded that the potential cost of colored firearms outweighs the potential benefits? How have you done that?
Actual experiences.
Blythe’s sports in Griffith, Indiana was a very good experience. First of all, when I walked in the salespeople greeted me. I was asked why I was interested in a firearm (personal defense? Home defense? Hunting? Collecting? Target shooting?). I was asked if I had any preferences regarding appearances or style. The salesman showed me their range of shotguns and when I held them made intelligent comments on whether or not the gun and stock physically fit me, which ones could be ordered with shorter/different stocks, noted that I was a left-handed shooter, and briefly reminded me of the pertinent laws and regulations for that type of firearm in my state. I was very, very pleased overall.
Westforth Sports, in unincorporated Calumet Township, I got much more of a “hur-hur - little lady wants a gun! Here, we have a tiny two-shot pistol in pink for you”. I will not be going back.
The Cabela’s the spouse and I went to in Highland was also a good experience. Again, I felt I was treated as a serious adult. They did have a selection of “girly” guns, which the salesman pointed out but made no further mention of when I said I liked black and blued steel. I’d feel comfortable going back to them, and their room full of collector’s and antiques was quite impressive (and quite out of my price range!). Cabela’s was also very good about have accessories that fit someone my size. Cabela’s also has a nice selection of bows, including crossbows (I own a crossbow already) which were fun to look at.
So, really, 2 out of 3 aren’t bad at all.