In our state it was in the homes of felons and gang members where over 90% of child gun accidents occurred. The main state newspaper looked at the past 200 shootings of children in "gun owning homes" and over and over they found the gun owner was an illegal un owners, over 90% of whom were prior felons or persons in gangs. Indeed the homes of gun owners who are not prior felons, prior criminals or gang embers are about 20% SAFER from violence than unarmed homes When you control for the fact that within any given demographic suicide rates (2/3 of gun deaths) don't change, just method changes, with or without guns, and 90% of accidents being in the homes of prior criminals, and 90% of gun homicide victims being prior criminals themselves, gun owning homes of persons not in those groups are safer than non gun owning homes! http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

No. Women use drugs more often, and those are much more often counted as accident. At school in Australia I had a dorm mate who committed suicide with a prescription opioid overdose. We all knew she was depressed. It was ruled accident, because unlike self inflicted death by gun which are always ruled suicide, drug overdose is treated the opposite way by Coroners. With overdose, absent affirmative proof of intent to commit suicide, it is ruled an accident. In short if there are gun cleaning materials out, or if a person is hunting, as is in the case with a tiny fraction of one percent of self inflicted gunshot, it WILL be ruled a suicide. In contrast unless there is a note or the family is volunteering the victim had severe depression, a prescription or illicit drug overdose is always an "accident". The fact is, within a given demographic, self caused "accidental deaths are higher among those without guns. Think Philip Seymor Hoffman who was clinically depressed, took a MASSIVE and clearly lethal dose, and was ruled an "accident."

I am an Aussie living and working in the States for the past five years. At Uni I worked for a suicide hotline and I keep up with the literature. For a long time after we instituted our stronger gun control, widespread confiscation of handguns, there were claims our suicide rates dropped. Those claims have been debunked. There were both a) methodological changes that caused an 18% drop simply due to the way counting was done. Google Australia suicide undercount" to see the peer reviewed work showing that. b) non gun methods of self caused death rose much more than the reduction in self caused death by gunshot. In Australia, as in the USA, a self inflicted gunshot is per se ruled a suicide. there must be evidence to the contrary to rule it an accident. The OPPOSITE is the case with drug overdose, poisoning, crashes, "falls" tat are really jumps, drownings at sea, co2 asphyxia, etc. Absent affirmative evidence of suicide, these are per se ruled accident. None gun self caused death rose more than double the rate of the drop in gun suicide The research shows having a gun in the household -- within a demographic group -- does not change suicide rates one iota. The 'within demographic group' is important as well. In The highest (counted) suicide and self caused death rate is later middle age men generally , with a sharper spike in in rural areas. That is true in cultures with guns and those with no guns. In the USA, that is the demographic with guns. So there is a logical and statistical fallacy in not controlling for that. The data need to be looked at with and without guns within the same demographic groups. When that is done, the presence of a gun is irrelevant to self caused death rate. This NY Times article is a gigantic disservice. More and more mental health professionals understand we may have up to 100,000 suicides per year, and with about wrongly 65,000 counted as accident, the MINORITYY are with guns. It is the WHY of suicide that is important. The "how" is irrelevant, and it is harmful and distracting to concentrate on the means.