Gun accidents in Florida are double the national average

[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.