Circumstances and Other Incident Characteristics
The most common circumstance surrounding unintentional firearm deaths of both younger (60%) and older children (49%) was playing with a gun. Older children, relative to younger children, more often died in incidents involving showing a gun to others and/or mistakenly thinking the gun was unloaded or the safety was engaged. A gun was mistaken for a toy in 16% of younger children’s deaths and in only 1 death involving an older child. Approximately the same percentage of deaths of younger and older children occurred while hunting or target shooting (14% and 17%, respectively). The majority of both younger and older children were fatally injured in a home. The proportion involving a handgun was similar for younger and older children (59% and 57%, respectively).