Swimming Pools Are More Dangerous To Children Than Firearms

I saw an article today about a boy that had drowned in his uncle's swimming pool--a year after his cousin narrowly avoided the same fate. It reminded me of some quick calculations I had done a couple years ago about the risk of swimming pools versus firearms.

The impetus for my calculation was an article in The Telegraph that agonized over the fact that approximately 100 children died from gun related accidents in 2013--about two every week. Looking at statistics on drowning though, I found that about 390 kids (i.e., 14 and under) drown in swimming pools or spas every year (that is, more than one per day!). Accidents from other causes take their toll, as well. Some 20 children die each year drowning in buckets; and more than 9,000 die in automobile accidents. There were also 293 kids (less than 9 years old) killed by tipping or falling furniture between 2000 and 2011--62% of which were killed by a falling television. And about the 3.5 million children (14 and younger) are injured each year playing sports.

More broadly, in 2000, there were 3,326 deaths attributable to sports (not including professional teams). 3,007 were related to swimming activities (633 were from drowning), while only 3 were related to shooting sports.

There are 10.3 million swimming pools in the United States. In 1996, there were 242 million firearms in the United States. More recent estimates place the number north of 310 million. Thus, crunching the numbers (390 drownings in a swimming pool versus 100 accidental shooting deaths as reported by The Telegraph), it appears that swimming pools are about 117 times (or 11,700%) more likely to kill a child than is a firearm.