When the kids are coming over, everyone rightfully worries about safely stowing the firearms – securing them in gun cabinets and safes and putting on trigger locks. Household poisons and pesticides are put in locked cabinets, medications are put away in childproof bottles. Electric outlets are covered, and everyone frets about all the other little things that a kid can get in trouble with.
- Bubbas rescues a tennis ball.
But the thing most overlooked is not a little thing. One of the deadliest things lying around many modern homes is the backyard pool or hot tub.
While guns are often associated with fear and violence, we tend to think of pools as fun experiences, tailor made for kids. And most of the time, having a pool in the yard can provide some family memories that will last forever. But scientists tell us that statistically speaking, a pool is more dangerous than a loaded pistol.
In 1997 alone (the last year for which data are available), 742 children under the age of 10 drowned in the United States last year alone. Approximately 550 of those drownings — about 75 percent of the total — occurred in residential swimming pools. According to the most recent statistics, there are about six million residential pools, meaning that one young child drowns annually for every 11,000 pools. About 175 children under the age of 10 died in 1998 as a result of guns. About two-thirds of those deaths were homicides. There are an estimated 200 million guns in the United States. Doing the math, there is roughly one child killed by guns for every one million guns. Thus, on average, if you both own a gun and have a swimming pool in the backyard, the swimming pool is about 100 times more likely to kill a child than the gun is.
The point of this post is NOT to pick a fight with folks who worry about gun safety, or to yammer about the politics of gun ownership. Bubba hopes that gun owners and non-owners alike will be shocked enough by those statistics that you’ll make pool safety a priority at your house or apartment.
