Firearm accidents barely made it onto the chart I was looking at with 22 unintentional firearm deaths for the 10-14 year old category. It was the only place it was in the top ten causes of death for any age group all the way up to the 65+ category.
vs.
1170 for being run over by cars
708 for drowning
1182 unintentional suffocation
408 being murdered by a parent/family member
58 dying from exposure (cold)
228 from burning to death
69 accidental death from beatings
116 bicycle accidents
Source 2012 statistics form the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
in 2012.
Firearm deaths are hardly the "low hanging" fruit on things killing children in the US, and it hardly happens "every single day" Hence why most "gun nuts" get more than a little agitated when it is used as a reason to take away their rights.
It isn't a low hanging fruit. It is part of a multipronged approach, tackling all of the ways people die needlessly.
Automakers spend billions of dollars making their cars more safe, going to great lengths to add features that increase survivability. The government sets standards that must be met if the car is allowed to be sold.
Local governments and state/national governments spend millions of dollars making lakes, rivers and beaches more safe, by adding signage, marking hazards and swimming areas, hiring lifeguards, building lighthouses, etc.
Just about every plastic bag is marked with warnings not to allow children to play with them. Lampcords and blinds have standards now that are supposed to make them safer and more difficult for young children to hang themselves.
"408 being murdered by a parent/family member" How many of those were by gun?
"58 dying from exposure (cold)" Governments all over the world, including the USA, have programs subsidizing fuel for the poor. Lots of effort and money is spent predicting the weather and issuing cold weather / winter storm warnings.
"228 from burning to death" - The government spends a huge amount of money on fire education and local municipalities subsidize smoke detectors, CO detectors, and other fire safety items. Etc.
So we do take action to try to prevent those causes of deaths. We spend billions of dollars a year on reducing them, and try to educate those in society about the dangers. The argument "accidental gun shootings are just another, of many common ways to die" only works if you are willing to treat it the same way as we treat other deaths. By education, regulation, and by using every other tool available. Gun advocates complaining about regulation and education is as absurd as a match or lighter manufacturer complaining about Smokey the Bear. The goal is to make the product more safe, and the public more educated, so it isn't as vilified.