Gun accidents in Florida are double the national average

[SecularMotion]

It’s not armed robbers or warring gangs who send the greatest percentage of gunshot survivors to Florida emergency rooms.

It’s people who shoot someone, or themselves, accidentally.

Four out of every 10 people who are rushed to a Florida hospital or emergency room with a nonfatal wound were shot by accident, according to hospital data collected by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration and published by the Florida Department of Health.

It’s a far bigger problem in Florida than elsewhere — double the national average the past three years — according to numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

http://jacksonville.com/breaking-news/2013-12-19/story/gun-accidents-florida-are-double-national-average

[shedevil69taz]

1. The term is negligence not accident n/t

[NYC_SKP]

2. And Orange County is even worse: More than three times the national average.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-gfx-gun-accidents-20131214,0,6932003.graphic

[ileus]

3. Safety first.

I'm sure a bunch of these are from folks without proper holsters.

Is this one of those states were you can't print?

Just say no to IWB carry is my motto...


Stay safe and carry on.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

4. Two words...

...Plaxico Buress

[Eleanors38]

8. Reaching for the wrong gun.

[Starboard Tack]

11. Such insight. Of course, it must be the holsters. You are fucking priceless.

I never know whether to laugh or cry when I read your posts.

[ileus]

12. Have you ever tried those crappy

IWB holsters? Junk.... Complete junk I tell you. Plus the slow you down should you ever find yourself in a life saving situation.

As you've probably noticed I'm a huge safety advocate, and IWB carry should be left to the seasoned CCer.

[Starboard Tack]

13. I find myself in life saving situations almost daily

Never had the need for either a gun or a holster, except for maybe a screw gun. I think you meant to say a "life taking situation", which would be the only reason to carry your gun around.
Love your peace sign and sig line. You are a true oxymoron. Stay safe out there in Triggerland.

[gejohnston]

5. Yet Florida is below the national average in gun ownership

National average I saw is something like 37-40 percent. Florida's gun ownership rate is about 25 percent, putting it on par with France and Italy. It is the lowest gun ownership rate in the southeast.
Most Floridians first or second generation transplants from the rust belt and northeast (think Sun City, Arizona) who buy their first gun without knowing anything about them, and don't secure them from kids that know less than they do.

None of these are accidents, they are negligence. First time gun buyers, who didn't learn from elders as kids, get proper training, and invest in a security device to keep it from curious children and "invincible" teens.

[spin]

6. I find that statistic hard to believe. ...

I lived in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida for 37 years and worked for a large corporation that manufactured aerospace products. The majority of my co-workers owned at least one firearm and a good percentage had concealed weapons permits. Firearms were also common in the neighborhood where I lived. Florida also leads the nation in the number of people who have carry permits and currently over 1,000,000 residents have one.

When I retired I moved to a small town in north Florida and almost everybody I know has a firearm in their home. Deer and hog hunting are very popular in this area of Florida and not merely among the male population. I remember talking to a elderly grandmother in a hardware store who bragged about shooting her first deer of the season with a black powder rifle and a 14 year old girl whose was proud of the first deer she had bagged.

I suspect the problem with the statistics on how many people own firearms in my state is largely due to the fact that many Florida gun owners refuse to tell any stranger who calls them or knocks on their door that they own firearms. A lot of the gun owners that I know are very paranoid about the government compiling a list of gun owners which will eventually be used for gun confiscation. I've never worried about this as I have a concealed weapons permit so obviously the government would have reason to suspect that I own firearms. I also subscribe to a gun magazine and buy ammo using my credit card. I suspect that the government could come up with a very accurate list of all gun owners in a heartbeat if it wished considering how much time, effort and money it has put into data mining information about citizens in recent years.

I will agree that many first time gun owners in Florida have little idea of the basic rules of gun safety. I have seen several at the range who when asked by the range master if their firearm was loaded, they had no idea of how to safely check it.

But one thing that I wish to add is that often experienced gun owners who have had safety training grow careless over the years. A wise person once told me that that are only two types of gun owners, those who have had an accidental discharge and those who will.

[Eleanors38]

7. Yet, the % of concealed carry is highest in FL, I believe.

Uh, yeah, you just said that.

[gejohnston]

9. could be

This is where I got the number, which cited US carry. It pretty much matches what I have seen in other places. My Florida experience is mostly from my in laws, a mixed bag (my FIL had a CCW and let it expire when he sold his business and gave the Barretta .32 to one of my SILs who had a break in). At first I thought the number seemed low too, but then I remembered I was pretty much in Queens/Long Island South (Citrus, Hernando Counties aka the Nature Coast soon to be the strip mall coast, but I digress.) It's kind of my state too, part of the time, but not home. But I digress.

http://usliberals.about.com/od/Election2012Factors/a/Gun-Owners-As-Percentage-Of-Each-States-Population.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/interactives/guns/ownership.html

Florida's population is 19.3M with 1M current CCWs. Wyoming has 550K people with 25K valid CCWs according to DCI (Wyoming's equivalent to FDLE). That puts it about Florida's five percent vs Wyoming's four percent. Of course, that doesn't count that Wyoming is now Vermont light (green only for legal residents) but DCI still processes about 250-350 applications per month.

I don't think it's just the US where hard numbers are hard to come by. I read a few years ago about a couple of studies done by the UN. One study put the top five in gun ownership as Finland, US, Norway, Canada, Switzerland while and another put US, Norway, Canada, Switzerland Czech Republic, Finland.

[ileus]

10. Hoyte is right about one thing...people shouldn't stuff guns down their pants.

I know lots of folks are fond of IWB carry but it's not for me.

Like all new CCer's I tried a IWB holster as my first holster. Used it twice before upgrading to an OWB rig, haven't looked back since. I did make a few IWB kydex holsters but those are all OWB and all reserved for outdoors activities (hunting, hiking, fishing, jeep rides...ect)

I love leather....I'm thinking about investing in one with an ostrich inlay, sure it's got a big price tag but she'd be worth it.

[Skeeter Barnes]

14. With the weather in FL, I would imagine most people have to carry IWB or pocket/purse.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these "accidents" are just stupid people carrying without a holster of any kind.