Ten Years of Preventable Tragedies

Key Findings

An analysis of more than 3,500 incidents that took place from 2015 to 2024 in which a child under the age of 18 unintentionally shot themself or others (included in the #NotAnAccident Index), reveals the following:

• A child gains access to a loaded firearm and unintentionally shoots themself or someone else nearly every day in the United States—an average of about 360 children a year.
• The two age groups most likely to unintentionally shoot themselves or others are high schoolers ages 14 to 17, followed by preschoolers age five and younger.
• One in every three unintentional shooters were preschoolers. Since 2015, the proportion of shootings by children five and under has increased while shootings by high schoolers have declined.
• The victims of shootings by children are most often also children. Over 9 in 10 of those wounded or killed in unintentional shootings by children were also under 18 years old.
• When children unintentionally shoot another person, the victim is most often a sibling or a friend.
• Unintentional shootings occur most frequently at times when children are likely to be home: over the weekend and during the summer.
• More than 7 in 10 unintentional child shootings occur in or around homes.
• When shootings occur outside the home, cars are the most likely location, particularly for preschoolers ages five and younger. But for middle schoolers, hunting and target-shooting areas are the most common.
• The 10 states with the highest rates of unintentional child shootings had rates that were, on average, nearly nine times higher than those of the 10 states with the lowest rates.
• States with secure storage or child-access prevention laws had the lowest rates of unintentional child shootings. Rates of unintentional shootings by children were 35 percent lower in states with laws that require gun owners to store firearms securely (“locking laws”), compared to states without secure storage laws.

Introduction

With an estimated 4.6 million children living in homes with unsecured guns,¹Matthew Miller and Deborah Azrael, “Firearm Storage in US Households with Children: Findings from the 2021 National Firearm Survey,” JAMA Network Open 5, no. 2 (2022): e2148823, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.48823. it is no surprise that firearms are the leading cause of death in the United States for children under age 18.²Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death, Injury Mechanism & All Other Leading Causes, 2023. Ages 1 to 17. Unintentional shootings by children are a persistent and heartbreaking aspect of this public health crisis. These incidents are also preventable when everyone takes steps to reduce children’s access to firearms in homes and cars, and in places children are visiting.

“It’s not just the child who’s injured or killed who is affected by these incidents. It’s their siblings and their cousins and their parents and their entire community. Staff at local schools come to us to help work through the trauma in the entire school when one of these incidents occurs. And it affects the medical personnel who treat them as well. I can’t tell you the number of pediatric residents who have come to me after being in the trauma bay when one of these children rolls in. It’s just so tragic for everybody involved.“

—Dr. Annie Andrews in conversation with Everytown for Gun Safety³Annie Andrews, MD, MSCR, clinical professor of pediatrics at Children’s National Hospital, in conversation with Kaelyn Forde, Everytown for Gun Safety, July 21, 2021.

Although the incidents included in the #NotAnAccident Index are limited to those in which the shooter was 17 or younger, the victims in these unintentional shootings ranged from a 1-month-old baby boy to a 77-year-old man. When children shoot another person, the victims and survivors are often their own siblings, cousins, friends, parents, or grandparents. These shootings leave multiple families and their extended communities facing grief, regret, and years of physical, emotional, and sometimes legal and financial consequences. The analysis of 10 years’ worth of these incidents can help steer us toward the most effective solutions.

Tracking Unintentional Shootings by Children

#NotAnAccident Index

In 2015, Everytown for Gun Safety started tracking unintentional shootings by children, collecting information through media reports about incidents in which a child under 18 unintentionally shot themself or someone else.

You can view the data referenced in this report in this data tracker.

Uncovering Solutions Through the Data

Trends: 10 Years of Unintentional Shootings by Children

From January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2024, at least 3,580 unintentional shootings by children ages 17 and younger took place, resulting in 1,382 people killed and 2,317 people wounded. Of the 10 years for which Everytown has tracked unintentional shootings, 2023 had the highest number of incidents—surpassing 400 for the first time. In 2024, a substantial -12 percent decrease in incidents followed the record high in the previous year.

Unintentional shootings by children reached a record high in 2023.

Source: Everytown Research analysis of #NotAnAccident Index, 2015–2024.

Unintentional shootings by children increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, coinciding with a surge in gun sales.

After a two-year decline in 2018 and 2019, the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a surge in both unintentional shootings and gun sales. The number of unintentional deaths resulting from shootings by children in 2020 and 2021 was a staggering 41 percent higher than the previous two years.⁴During 2018 and 2019, 617 unintentional shootings by children resulted in 220 people killed and 422 people wounded. During 2020 and 2021, 766 unintentional shootings by children resulted in 310 people killed and 490 people wounded. This was a 24 percent increase in such incidents, as well as a 41 percent increase in unintentional deaths and a 16 percent increase in nonfatal injuries resulting from these incidents in 2020–2021, compared to 2018–2019. In those two years, gun sales were more than 50 percent higher than in 2018 and 2019.⁵An estimated 26.5 million guns were sold during 2018–2019 compared to 40.7 million during 2020–2021, a 54 percent increase. Everytown Research analysis of Daniel Nass and Champe Barton, “How Many Guns Did Americans Buy Last Month?” The Trace, May 13, 2025, https://www.thetrace.org/2020/08/gun-sales-estimates/. Amid this dramatic rise in gun sales, researchers estimated that the number of children living in households with firearms in the United States increased to 30 million in 2021—up by 7 million since 2015.⁶Matthew Miller and Deborah Azrael, “Firearm Storage in US Households with Children: Findings from the 2021 National Firearm Survey,” JAMA Network Open 5, no. 2 (2022): e2148823, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.48823.

Gun sales surged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Daniel Nass and Champe Barton, “How Many Guns Did Americans Buy Last Month?” The Trace, May 13, 2025, https://www.thetrace.org/2020/08/gun-sales-estimates/.

The People: Shooter and Victim Demographics

Children who unintentionally fired the gun in these incidents ranged from toddlers and preschoolers to teenagers. Nearly all of the victims and survivors (92 percent) were also children under 18.⁷Of the 3,699 victims of unintentional child shootings (people shot and wounded or killed) in the 10-year period, 3,396 (92 percent) were younger than 18. The age group was unknown for fewer than 1 percent of the victims. While 14- to 17-year-olds made up the largest age group impacted by these incidents—and were most likely to be the shooters—children five years and younger were the second-largest age group impacted and were most likely to be the victims. Over the past 10 years, more than 1,100 preschoolers and toddlers ages five and under managed to find a loaded gun and unintentionally shoot themselves or someone else. And more than 1,200 children five and under were shot and wounded or killed. In other words, one in every three shooters and victims, respectively, were ages five and younger.⁸Of the 3,580 shooters, 1,165 (33 percent) of them were ages five or younger, and of the 3,699 victims, 1,208 (33 percent) were ages five or younger.

Two age groups account for the largest share of both shooters and victims: high schoolers and children five and younger.

Source: Everytown Research analysis of #NotAnAccident Index, 2015–2024. Data does not include 32 victims whose age group is unknown.

The youngest children are driving recent increases in unintentional shootings.

Toddlers’ and pre-kindergarteners’ access to guns are the primary drivers of the recent increases in unintentional shootings. From 2015 to 2024, the number of these shootings by children ages five and under increased +35 percent, while those among 14- to 17-year-olds decreased -15 percent. In 2021 alone, a record 150 children ages five and under unintentionally shot themself or someone else—about three preschoolers and toddlers every week.

Unintentional shootings by toddlers and pre-kindergarteners have increased while those among high schoolers have decreased.

Source: Everytown Research analysis of #NotAnAccident Index, 2015–2024.

Boys and men are most often the shooters and the victims of these incidents.

As with firearm homicides and suicides, the same holds true for unintentional shootings: Gun violence in all its forms is largely perpetrated by males. Boys made up the overwhelming majority of those directly involved in unintentional shootings: 79 percent of shooters were boys, and 75 percent of victims were boys and men.⁹Of the 3,580 shooters, 2,832 (79 percent) were male and 302 (8 percent) were female, while gender was unknown for 446 (12 percent). Of the 3,699 people shot and wounded or killed, 2,777 (75 percent) were male, 693 (19 percent) were female, and 229 (6 percent) were of unknown gender.

Media reports rarely provide data on race and ethnicity.

Although the race and ethnicity of shooters and victims are key demographic aspects of these incidents, that information is not systematically documented. Using both media tracking and court record reviews, Everytown was unable to obtain the race or ethnicity of 81 percent of shooters and 72 percent of victims over the 10 years studied.¹⁰Of the 3,580 shooters, at least 12 percent were Black or likely Black based on a parent’s race; 5 percent were white or likely white; and 2 percent were another race. Of the 3,699 people shot and wounded or killed, at least 17 percent were Black or likely Black based on a parent’s race; 7 percent were white or likely white; and 4 percent were another race. This is largely because the shooters and most victims are children, and as such, they benefit from laws and practices related to protecting the privacy of minors.

Children are most likely to shoot themselves, but family and friends are also at risk.

Unintentional shooting deaths and injuries are slightly more likely to be self-inflicted than inflicted by someone else.¹¹Of the 3,580 incidents, 50 percent involved the child shooting only themself; 46 percent involved the child shooting other people; 2 percent involved the child shooting themself and other people; and in 2 percent of cases, it was unknown whether the child shot themself or another child shot them. Since stages of brain development and socialization vary widely from infants to adolescents and teenagers, we examined the relationship between the victim and shooter, broken down by the shooter’s age group. Whereas at least 75 percent of the victims of shootings by children five and younger were those children themselves, 60 percent of the victims of teenagers 14 to 17 were other people, most often friends.¹²Among the victims of shooters ages 5 and younger, 75 percent were victims themself and 24 percent of victims were another person; among those shot by 6- to 10-year-olds, 50 percent were victims themselves and 50 percent of victims were someone else; among those shot by 11- to 13-year-olds, 40 percent were victims themselves and 58 percent of victims were other people; and among those shot by 14- to 17-year-olds, 39 percent were victims themselves and 60 percent were someone else. Among the remaining victims, it was unknown whether the shooter shot themself or someone else. When children unintentionally shoot someone else, the younger children are most likely to shoot a family member—often a sibling. But as children age, their friends become increasingly more likely to be the victims. Though adults make up a smaller portion of victims, they are obviously not immune to this danger. Parents accounted for just 5 percent of all victims in incidents when a child unintentionally shot someone else; however, parents are the second most likely victims of shootings by children ages five and younger, making up 22 percent of those victims.¹³At least 90 parents were unintentionally shot by their child. Among them, 64 (71 percent) were shot by a child who was age five or younger.

When children unintentionally shoot someone else, the victim is most often a sibling or friend.

Source: Everytown Research analysis of #NotAnAccident Index, 2015–2024.

How: Type of Gun

While suicide with a firearm is a devastating and growing problem among youth in the U.S., the self-inflicted injuries and deaths included in this report use a dataset with shootings that are not the result of suicide or attempts at self-harm. Rather, the shootings often happen in situations in which the child accessed and fired a gun they did not realize was loaded.¹⁴The determination as to whether a self-inflicted gun injury or gun death was unintentional, a suicide, or a suicide attempt is weighed carefully in this dataset. For older children and teenagers, a self-inflicted gun death that does not include a clear determination of intent (for example, by law enforcement) would not be included in this database of unintentional shootings. It might instead be categorized as a suicide. But in the case of younger children when the intent is not clearly determined, researchers review available information and make a determination as to whether the shooting circumstances indicate intentional self-harm or an unintentional incident. For further details, see Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Methodological Note on Preventable Tragedies: Unintentional Shootings by Children,” 2025, https://everytownresearch.org/report/methodological-note-on-not-an-accident-unintentional-shootings-by-children/. The stories of these shootings are harrowing—and these incidents are avoidable.

Ashlyn’s Story

“He was sleeping at his friend’s house for the holiday. He never came home.”

Ashlyn Carraway’s 13-year-old son, Noah Daigle, was spending a night at his 15-year-old friend’s house during the Christmas holiday break. Ashlyn said that having grown up in a gun-owning family in Louisiana, “Noah was experienced with guns. He had been hunting since he was probably three or four years old, and he was taught safety. I honestly never thought to ask anyone else about guns.”

But a phone call in the middle of that night changed Ashlyn’s life forever. She was told the boys had been video chatting with some of the girls from their class when Noah’s friend held a hunting rifle to Noah’s head as a joke. The boy pulled the trigger, not realizing the safety was not engaged, and Noah was killed instantly. Ashlyn said that even though teenagers are older than small children who find unsecured guns, they don’t always have the judgment to make safe decisions about them—and that is why it is always the adult’s responsibility to securely store guns.

“We shouldn’t just say, ‘Well, my kids are going to know better.’ Your kid may know better, but what about another one?” Ashlyn said. “In Noah’s case, his DNA wasn’t on any of the weapons, so he did know better. But how does that serve him? It didn’t save him that day.”

Ashlyn wants her fellow gun owners to understand that “when it comes down to safety, there’s no other answer than: It should be okay if I ask you about your guns and where you store them,” she explained. “I don’t need serial numbers. We’re not asking for a rundown of what you own. We’re just asking how free are your children with your weapons in your home?”

Ashlyn has struggled with anxiety and grief since Noah’s death. Some days she says she looks at Noah’s picture “a thousand times and I’m fine, and some days you just break down because it wasn’t fair. I didn’t get to see him grow up or I didn’t hear his voice change. Then you try to recall their voice because you don’t want to forget it.”¹Ashlyn Carraway in conversation with Kaelyn Forde, Everytown for Gun Safety, July 22, 2021.

Handguns are most commonly accessed in these shootings.

Although media reporting on these incidents does not always include details about the type of gun used, information obtained for 54 percent of unintentional shootings by children shows that handguns accounted for the great majority (86 percent) of them. Rifles and shotguns accounted for 7 and 6 percent, respectively, and assault-style weapons made up at least 1 percent of the guns accessed in these shootings.¹⁵The type of firearm was unknown for 1,645 incidents. Percentages are based on 1,935 incidents with known firearm types.

Breaking the data into two age groupings for analysis, we found that a somewhat higher proportion of incidents among children in the younger group (up to age 9) involved a handgun than among the older group (ages 10 to 17). Handguns were used in 93 percent of incidents in the younger group and 79 percent in the older group.

In most unintentional shootings by children, they had access to handguns and used them.

Source: Everytown Research analysis of #NotAnAccident Index, 2015–2024. Excludes unknown firearm type.

When: Month and Day of the Week

Most unintentional shootings occur at times when children are likely to be home.

Further analysis of these incidents points clearly to the far greater likelihood of unintentional shootings occurring when children are home from school.

• The average number of shooting incidents by children per day was highest in the summer. The average of unintentional child shootings per day in July was 44 percent higher than the September average.¹⁶In the 10 years of data Everytown analyzed, 1.21 unintentional shootings by children per day occurred in July, compared to 0.84 in September.
• Unintentional child shootings were more likely to happen on Friday through Sunday, with Saturday being the most common day.

Unintentional shootings by children are most likely to occur in July.

Source: Everytown Research analysis of #NotAnAccident Index, 2015–2024.

Unintentional shootings by children are most likely to occur on weekends.

Source: Everytown Research analysis of #NotAnAccident Index, 2015–2024.

Where: Location and State

Looking at where these shootings occur, the importance of secure gun storage in gun-owning homes and cars becomes even more pronounced. Over 7 in 10 unintentional shootings by children happened in or around a home—either that of the shooter, the victim, a friend or relative, or someone else.

More than 7 in 10 unintentional shootings by children occur at a home.

Source: Everytown Research analysis of #NotAnAccident Index, 2015–2024. “Other” includes abandoned homes, homes for sale, mobile homes, communal areas of apartment buildings, day care centers, barns, firehouses, buses, military bases, woods (unrelated to hunting), and offices.

When these shootings occur outside the home, cars are the most common location. Every month, on average, at least two children accessed a loaded, unsecured gun in a car and unintentionally shot themself or someone else.¹⁷Of the 650 shootings with known locations that occurred in places outside of homes, 293 (45 percent)—an average of 29 shootings each year—occurred in cars. The places outside the home where children were at risk varied by age group: Nearly three in four shootings outside the home by children five and younger happened in cars, while only one in four by middle schoolers (ages 11 to 13) occurred there.¹⁸The data reflects 603 shootings with known shooter age groups that occurred in places outside of homes, excluding unknown locations. For the middle school group, hunting and target-shooting areas were the most common places where unintentional shootings took place.¹⁹The data reflects 65 shootings with known shooter age groups that occurred in places outside of homes by children ages 11 to 13, excluding unknown locations; 25 occurred while hunting or target shooting.

Cars are the most common location for unintentional shootings outside the home.

Source: Everytown Research analysis of #NotAnAccident Index, 2015–2024. The data reflects 603 shootings that occurred in places outside of homes, excluding unknown locations.

Haley’s Story

“The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.”

Haley Rinehart’s 4-year-old son, Eli, found a loaded gun unsecured at his paternal grandmother’s house on April 5, 2002, and shot and wounded himself in the head. “When he saw it, he thought it was a toy and he was curious about it,” she said. “He wanted to see what he called “missiles,” which were bullets. When he picked it up, the weight caused it to slip in his fingers. His finger hit the trigger and it went off,” Haley said.

The fact that the shooting occurred at a relative’s home added to Haley’s devastation. As a 21-year-old mother of two, Haley “had never thought to question an adult being responsible, because I had always been taught to respect my elders and trust them. It was hard for me to process that adults would be so careless.”

Eli suffered major injuries. He had to have his right eye completely removed and lost his temporal bone and part of the temporal lobe of his brain. He spent months in the hospital. “It impacted me emotionally, mentally, even physically,” Haley said. “I literally went from a happy-go-lucky parent to a helicopter mom overnight.”

The shooting affected every part of Eli’s life, transforming him from a bubbly toddler to a withdrawn child and teenager. “Watching him go through that was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. He had to learn how to talk again, he had to learn how to walk again, he had to be re–potty trained,” Haley said. “And he had nightmares. . . . He would wake up screaming and cry for the rest of the night.”

Eli is now an adult. He still has free-floating bone fragments in his brain, and Haley worries that they could cause further damage in the future. “The doctors will tell you it’s a miracle he survived. But we’re not lucky per se, because he’s had to deal with so much because of it,” she said. “But what we can do is we can show people this is what can happen, and we don’t want it to happen to you.”¹Haley Rinehart in conversation with Kaelyn Forde, Everytown for Gun Safety, July 19, 2021.

Variation by State

A state-by-state analysis of the 3,580 unintentional shootings by children since 2015 reveals a tremendous range throughout the country. While 308 such incidents occurred in Texas²⁰For the 10 years studied, Texas had the 29th-highest rate of unintentional shootings by children, at 4.2 per 1 million children. over the 10-year period analyzed for this report, Hawaii had one incident, and none was recorded in Rhode Island. Further findings include the following:

• The 10 states with the highest rates of unintentional shootings per 1 million residents younger than 18 were Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, South Carolina, Alabama, Alaska, Ohio, Indiana, and Georgia. 
• The 10 states with the lowest rates—where unintentional shootings by children were rare or never happened—were Rhode Island, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, California, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington, and Connecticut.
• The 10 states with the highest rates of unintentional shootings by children were, on average, nearly nine times higher than the 10 states with the lowest rates.²¹Collectively, the 10 states with the highest rates of unintentional shootings by children had a rate of 10.1 per 1 million children, compared to 1.2 such shootings per 1 million children in the 10 states with the lowest rates.

Rates of unintentional shootings by children by state vary enormously.

Source: Everytown Research analysis of #NotAnAccident Index, 2015–2024, and US Census Bureau, 2015–2023.

States with high gun ownership have higher rates of unintentional shootings by children.

These vast differences in unintentional shootings by state can be attributed in part to gun ownership rates. It stands to reason that the likelihood of a child accessing a gun is linked to gun ownership in that home and community, and our dataset shows this association clearly. The states with the highest household gun ownership rates (where 50 percent or more households in that state are gun-owning households) have nearly five times the rate of unintentional shootings by children compared to the states with the lowest gun ownership (where 25 percent of households or less own guns).²²Everytown Research analysis of household gun ownership data for 2018 from RAND, accessed April 3, 2025, https://rand.shinyapps.io/hfa-estimates/. The rate of unintentional shootings by children is 7.9 per 1 million children in states with the highest rates of household gun ownership (50 to 62 percent): Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, South Dakota, West Virginia, Idaho, Arkansas, North Dakota, Mississippi, and Alabama. The rate of unintentional shootings by children is 1.7 per 1 million children in states with the lowest rates of household gun ownership (9 to 25 percent): Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, California, Illinois, and Maryland.

But this is not the end of the story. Policy also matters.

Impact of Gun Storage Policies

Storage policies related to children’s access to firearms can prevent unintentional child shootings. States with the lowest unintentional shooting rates have strong firearm storage laws.

Laws that seek to hold gun owners accountable when children can or do access an unsecured gun fall along a spectrum from the most protective to the least:

• Locking Laws: The most protective laws require gun owners to store firearms securely, and penalties may apply even if the firearm is not accessed. Strong locking laws apply this requirement to all households, regardless of the presence of children (four states). Weaker versions of these laws apply only to households with children or other homes children frequent or where they are expected to be present (seven states and Washington, DC).²³Among the 11 states and Washington, DC, with locking laws as of 2024, four states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Rhode Island) require gun owners to secure their firearms whenever they are not in their immediate possession or control; and seven states (California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, and Virginia) and the District of Columbia require the gun owner to secure their firearms if a child is likely to access an unsecured gun. After 2024, California made their locking law stronger and Hawaii changed from an after access law to a locking law, both adopting a stronger version requiring the gun owner to secure their firearms whenever they are not in their immediate possession or control. 
• After Access Laws: These laws penalize gun owners if a child does access an unsecured firearm, but do not require that firearms be secured (15 states). Such laws are less protective than locking laws because they only encourage secure gun storage instead of requiring it.²⁴At the end of 2024, 15 states had after access laws. Since then, Hawaii strengthened their secure storage law ,changing from an after access law to a locking law.
• Intentional or Reckless Access Laws: The laws that are least protective apply only when a gun owner intentionally or recklessly provides a firearm to a child (10 states). These laws apply in such limited circumstances that they are not considered secure gun storage laws. 
• No Law: Having no child-access-related laws at all is the least protective circumstance (14 states).²⁵In these states, if prosecutors have enough evidence, they could bring charges under other laws, such as child endangerment or involuntary manslaughter.

In total, at the end of 2024,²⁶For the most up-to-date list of states with secure storage laws, visit https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/secure-storage-or-child-access-prevention-required/. 26 states and the District of Columbia had a secure gun storage law (a locking law or an after access law).²⁷During the study period, 12 states enacted or strengthened their secure gun storage laws. After having no related laws, five states—Maine (2021), Michigan (2024), New Mexico (2023), Vermont (2023), and Washington (2019)—enacted after access laws and two states—New York (2019) and Oregon (2021)—enacted locking laws. Colorado (2021) enacted a locking law after previously having an intentional/reckless access law. Four states—Connecticut (2023), Maryland (2023), Nevada (2019), and Rhode Island (2024)—strengthened their secure storage laws, changing from after access laws to locking laws.

Secure Gun Storage and Child-Access Laws by State, 2024

Everytown legal analysis, 2024

Last updated: 12.31.2024

States with the highest rates of unintentional shootings by children have weak laws or no firearm storage laws.

Looking at incidents state by state, along with their corresponding laws, the 10 states where unintentional shootings by children were lowest have one important thing in common: They have some form of child-access law—commonly known as secure storage laws—that provides protection against these shootings. In sharp contrast, the 10 states with the highest rates of unintentional child shootings do not have such a law—or have a secure storage law that applies only in extremely limited circumstances.

The 10 states with the lowest rates of unintentional shootings by children all have secure firearm storage laws.

Rank (lowest rate = 51)	State	Number of unintentional shootings by children	Rate per 1 million children	Type of secure storage law as of 2024
51	Rhode Island	0	0	Locking Law
50	Hawaii	1	0.33	After Access Law
49	Massachusetts	7	0.51	Locking Law
48	New Hampshire	2	0.77	After Access Law
47	California	91	1.02	Locking Law
46	New Jersey	22	1.10	After Access Law
45	New York	55	1.33	Locking Law
44	Oregon	15	1.75	Locking Law
43	Washington	31	1.89	After Access Law
42	Connecticut	16	2.14	Locking Law

The top 10 states with the highest rates of unintentional shootings by children all have weak child-access laws or none at all.

Rank (highest rate = 1)	State	Number of unintentional shootings by children	Rate per 1 million children	Type of secure storage law as of 2024
1	Louisiana	167	15.24	No Law
2	Mississippi	92	12.99	Intentional or Reckless Law
3	Tennessee	175	11.52	Intentional or Reckless Law
4	Missouri	142	10.26	Intentional or Reckless Law
5	South Carolina	110	9.94	No Law
6	Alabama	110	9.91	No Law
7	Alaska	17	9.31	No Law
8	Ohio	225	8.62	No Law
9	Indiana	136	8.61	Intentional or Reckless Law
10	Georgia	214	8.52	Intentional or Reckless Law

Rates of unintentional shootings by children are significantly lower in states with secure firearm storage laws than in states with no storage laws.

Previous research has shown that states with secure storage laws experience lower rates of unintentional shootings by children—and states with the strongest types of storage laws see the greatest benefits.²⁸Ashley D. Cannon, Kate Reese, Paige Tetens, and Kathryn R. Fingar, “Preventable Tragedies: Findings from the #NotAnAccident Index of Unintentional Shootings By Children,” Injury Epidemiology 10 (Suppl 1), (2023), https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-023-00464-3. Our analysis of shooting rates over the past 10 years provides additional evidence of the importance of strong secure storage laws: Compared to states with no secure storage laws, rates of unintentional shootings by children were 35 percent lower in states with locking laws and 31 percent lower in states with laws that apply after a child accesses a gun. States with laws that apply only if the gun owner intentionally or recklessly gives a child access to a gun had similar rates of unintentional shootings by children as states without any related laws.²⁹Negative binomial regression results: Locking laws (IRR: 0.65, 95% CI: 0.49–0.86, p<.01); After access laws (IRR: 0.69, 95% CI: 0.55–0.87, p<.01); Intentional or reckless access laws (IRR: 1.02, 95% CI: 0.87–1.19, p=0.79). The model controlled for the percentage of the population that is non-Latinx white, percentage of the population that is male, unemployment rate, population density, mean household income, homicide death rate, and suicide death rate—and included fixed effects for year and census division. The analysis lagged all covariates, except for homicide death rate and suicide death rate, by one year. To account for implementation in states that changed their secure storage laws during the study period (2015–2024), the analysis lagged the secure storage law covariate by one year. Secure storage laws were changed in 10 states prior to 2024: Connecticut, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. These findings suggest that enacting a secure storage law or switching to a stronger storage law could save countless lives.

35%

Rates of unintentional shootings by children were 35 percent lower in states with locking laws than in states with no secure storage laws.

Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Ten Years of Preventable Tragedies: Findings from the #NotAnAccident Index of Unintentional Shootings by Children,” 2025, https://everytownresearch.org/report/notanaccident/. 

31%

Rates of unintentional shootings by children were 31 percent lower in states with laws that apply after a child accesses a gun than in states with no secure storage laws.

Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Ten Years of Preventable Tragedies: Findings from the #NotAnAccident Index of Unintentional Shootings by Children,” 2025, https://everytownresearch.org/report/notanaccident/. 

Although this research focuses on laws to prevent unintentional firearm injuries and deaths at the hands of children, secure gun storage laws can also prevent youth suicides, gun theft, and violent crimes by youths or adults.³⁰RAND, “The Effects of Child-Access Prevention Laws,” July 16, 2024, https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/child-access-prevention.html.

Recommendations

As is clear from the preceding discussion, secure gun storage is indispensable for averting these incidents—tragedies that happen with painful regularity at times and in places where children are simply being children. Recommendations include secure gun storage practices, public education campaigns, and strong laws.

Secure Gun Storage Practices

It is always an adult’s responsibility to prevent unauthorized access to guns, not a child’s responsibility to avoid them.

Talking with children about guns is a good precaution—and those conversations should evolve as children grow older. But these discussions do not guarantee their safety. Children are endlessly curious, and exploration is one of the hallmarks of childhood. One study found that young children who go through a weeklong gun safety training program are just as likely as children with no training to approach or play with a handgun when they find one.³¹Marjorie S. Hardy, “Teaching Firearm Safety to Children: Failure of a Program,” Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 23, no. 2 (April 2002): 71–76, https://doi.org/10.1097/00004703-200204000-00002. That is why it is always an adult’s responsibility to prevent unauthorized access to guns, not a child’s responsibility to avoid them.

An important part of that responsibility is asking about guns in any home your child visits. We routinely take precautions in other areas of life by asking relatives or the parents of our children’s friends about pets in their homes, allergens, car seats, and more. Asking about whether they own guns and whether firearms are securely stored should be part of these safety discussions. Some people may find this to be an awkward conversation initially. The Be SMART campaign provides helpful tips on how to talk about these concerns.

The next secure gun storage practice relates to the actual device used for storage. Gun-owning households in the US have an average of five guns, often a variety of types of equipment used for a variety of purposes.³²John Berrigan, Deborah Azrael, and Matthew Miller, “The Number and Type of Private Firearms in the United States,” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 704, no. 1 (2023): 70–90, https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231164855. These uses may include sport and recreation, gun collecting, and protection.³³Julie A. Ward et al., “Reasons for Gun Ownership Among Demographically Diverse New and Prior Gun Owners,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 67, no. 5 (2024): 730–39, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2024.06.026; Katherine Schaefer, “Key facts About Americans and Guns,” July 24, 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/. Responsible gun owners know to practice gun safety at all times to prevent access to firearms by any unauthorized user. 

The approach and kinds of devices used to store firearms vary depending on important considerations, such as how many children are in the household or are likely to visit and what age they are, as well as the presence of anyone who may be a danger to themselves or others. Practicing gun safety means storing firearms unloaded, locked, and separate from ammunition and secured to a structure in the house (such as a wall or heavy piece of furniture) to prevent theft. One study found that households that kept both firearms and ammunition locked were associated with an 85 percent lower risk of unintentional firearm injuries among children and teens, compared to those that locked neither.³⁴David C. Grossman et al., “Gun Storage Practices and Risk of Youth Suicide and Unintentional Firearm Injuries,” JAMA 293, no. 6 (2005): 707–14, https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.293.6.707.

Assume children and teens can find guns. Store firearms unloaded, locked, and separate from ammunition.

Finding a storage arrangement for guns kept in homes for protection can be more challenging. But secure gun storage practices do not prevent a firearm from being accessed quickly in a self-defense scenario. Many affordable options for gun storage can provide owners with access to a gun in a matter of seconds while still keeping it out of the hands of children and people who are at risk of harming themselves or others. 

Three key considerations are important for storing guns so that they can be easily accessed for home defense, but not by minors, thieves, or other unauthorized users:

1. Locked boxes are far preferable to other types of gun locks, such as cable and trigger locks, because they fully contain the gun so that children cannot see what is inside and because they offer stronger protection. 
2. Locked boxes that can be opened only by authorized individuals provide important safety. Some of the fastest locked boxes open using the owner’s fingerprints in only half a second. Boxes that open with radio frequency identification (RFID) “smart” tags using chip technology also allow very quick access. Boxes opened with keys or a combination are less desirable options due to the ease of others finding the key or figuring out the code. 
3. Owners should choose a storage device that can be secured so that the gun cannot be stolen. Companies manufacture gun storage devices that can be secured in any part of the house.

Although having a gun for potential self-defense may be a priority, it is also essential to be realistic about the safety and effectiveness of that use. A 2015 study by researchers at Harvard University and the University of Vermont, using data from 2007 to 2011, found that one’s chances of being injured in a self-defense situation with a gun or by using other self-protective measures (such as running away or screaming for help) are roughly the same. There is little evidence that using a gun for self-defense reduces the danger of either sustaining an injury or losing possessions during a crime.³⁵David Hemenway and Sara J. Solnick, “The Epidemiology of Self-Defense Gun Use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys, 2007–2011,” Preventive Medicine 79 (October 2015): 22–27, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.03.029. Finally, guns kept quickly accessible for protection are two times likely to be stolen than to be used to stop a crime.³⁶Center for American Progress analysis of the National Crime Victimization Survey: “While guns were used for self-defense in 85,000 crimes per year from 2010 to 2015, roughly 162,000 guns are stolen each year.” Center for American Progress, “Myth vs. Fact: Debunking the Gun Lobby’s Favorite Talking Points,” fact sheet, October 5, 2017, https://ampr.gs/2Vn948w. In this way, unsecured guns may actually increase the likelihood of crime and violence through a greater risk of theft.

There is little evidence that using a gun for self-defense reduces the danger of either sustaining an injury or losing possessions during a crime.

In addition to securely storing guns in homes, they should also be secured when in cars. Research shows that 5.7 million handguns are stored in cars in the US,³⁷John Berrigan, Deborah Azrael, and Matthew Miller, “The Number and Type of Private Firearms in the United States,” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 704, no. 1 (2023): 70–90, https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231164855. and cars are now the largest source of stolen guns. These findings make it predictable that cars are the second most common location where unintentional shootings by children occur,³⁸From 2015 to 2024, 293 unintentional shootings by children occurred in cars. and some shootings at other locations involved guns stolen from cars.³⁹See, for example, Douglas Walker, “Victim’s Mother Calls for ‘Accountability’ in Fatal Shooting,” Muncie Star Press, January 23, 2023, https://bit.ly/3Fvq6pn; Graham Cawthon, “Police: Georgia Teen Charged with Murder After 12-year-old Child Shot in the Head,” WJCL, May 4, 2022, https://bit.ly/42kD96Q; Bill Grimes, “Update: Parents Express Pain of Loss During Sentencing in Fatal Shooting,” Effingham Daily News, April 14, 2016, https://bit.ly/40dcy9P. Practicing secure gun storage in cars is an important way to prevent unintentional shootings and other forms of gun violence. There’s a gun safe for sale for every make and model of vehicle.

Secure Gun Storage Public Education

The number of unintentional child shootings detailed in this report reminds us that we must urgently get the word out about the importance of secure firearm storage. Everyone in the community can play a role—from community members and law enforcement to elected officials and celebrities to gun sellers and schools to doctors and journalists—in shaping messages and developing options that are appropriate for local contexts. Some important initiatives include the following:

Community

Awareness campaigns to improve public health have been extremely effective in changing behaviors related to major issues including smoking, wearing seat belts, and impaired driving. For secure gun storage and reducing unintentional child shootings, one such campaign is Be SMART, an effort Everytown launched to emphasize that it’s an adult’s responsibility to keep kids from accessing guns, and that every adult can play a role in keeping children and communities safer. Thousands of Be SMART volunteers across the country help parents and adults normalize conversations about gun safety through online training, booths at county fairs and farmer’s markets, National Night Out campaigns, and many more events. Elected officials⁴⁰Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, “As Gun Purchases Skyrocket During Pandemic, Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action Unveil ‘Be SMART’ PSA on Secure Gun Storage,” press release, April 23, 2020, https://www.everytown.org/press/as-gun-purchases-skyrocket-during-pandemic-everytown-for-gun-safety-moms-demand-action-unveil-be-smart-psa-on-secure-gun-storage/. and celebrities⁴¹@everytown, “Today is the first day of the NFL season, and @AaronDonald97, three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year for the @RamsNFL and founder of @ad99solutions, has a message: Secure gun storage saves lives,” X, September 9, 2021 https://x.com/Everytown/status/1436041718055391245; @juliannemoore, “My #WomanCrushWednesday this week is Kim Dennis from Baltimore. After Kim’s nephew, Andrew V Zachary, was shot and killed at the age of 23 in 2017, Kim began volunteering with @MomsDemand and @besmartforkids, a program that promotes secure firearm storage to prevent child gun deaths and injuries,” Instagram, May 7, 2025, https://www.instagram.com/p/DJWXoAixL0L/?igsh=NDVwcWpraDBlOHY5. also help to spread the Be SMART message by sharing informational materials and PSAs on their social media pages. And law enforcement agencies hand out Be SMART materials to individuals who apply for firearms permits and distribute gun locks to gun owners.

Other efforts include Brady’s End Family Fire campaign. In collaboration with the Ad Council, Brady has produced ads, social media graphics, public service announcements, training, and other initiatives to promote responsible gun ownership and secure storage.⁴²Brady, “End Family Fire,” accessed June 20, 2025, https://www.endfamilyfire.org.

Firearms and Sporting Goods Stores

As a start, partnerships among gun shops, gun storage-device sellers, hospitals, and/or local governments are yet another way to educate people on secure storage. The public health department in King County, Washington, has a partnership with a number of online and in-store retailers and provides educational posters and brochures, as well as discounts on storage devices.⁴³King County, WA, Violence and Injury Prevention Program, “Lock It Up: Promoting the Safe Storage of Firearms,” accessed June 20, 2025, https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/dph/health-safety/safety-injury-prevention/preventing-gun-violence/safe-firearm-storage. What’s more, all gun safes and lock boxes are tax-exempt in the state of Washington,⁴⁴Wash. Rev. Code § 82.08.832. as they are in some other states.

Schools

11M

As of 2024, more than 11 million students in the US live in a school district requiring schools to educate parents about secure gun storage.

Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Inaugural SMART Week Campaign Begins as Part of Nationwide Effort to Raise Awareness About Secure Gun Storage,” press release, August 26, 2024, https://everytownsupportfund.org/press/inaugural-smart-week-campaign-begins-as-part-of-nationwide-effort-to-raise-awareness-about-secure-gun-storage/.

Last updated: 8.26.2024

Since 2019, volunteers with Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, in partnership with Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, have successfully urged school districts across 35 states to pass resolutions requiring schools to send home information with students to educate parents about the importance of securely storing any firearms they own.⁴⁵The states with these resolutions are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Action on secure storage can be taken at the state level too. In 2022, following persistent advocacy from volunteers, California became the first state in the country to enact a statewide secure storage notification policy after Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law⁴⁶California Senate Bill 906 and California Assembly Bill 452. requiring public and charter schools to educate parents and caretakers about the critical role of secure firearm storage in keeping students safe from gun violence.⁴⁷Everytown for Gun Safety, ”Following Tireless Advocacy by California Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action, California Legislature Passes Groundbreaking Gun Violence Prevention Bills,” press release, August 9, 2022, https://www.everytown.org/press/following-tireless-advocacy-by-california-moms-demand-action-students-demand-action-california-legislature-passes-groundbreaking-gun-violence-prevention-bills/. This is a simple yet effective action others can take to protect US students.⁴⁸Students Demand Action, “Urge Your School Board to Act on School Safety,” January 26, 2022, https://studentsdemandaction.org/report/urge-your-school-board-to-act-on-school-safety/.

“Prevention is really the cornerstone of our profession. We talk all the time about drowning prevention, chronic disease prevention, and motor vehicle crash injury prevention. Too often, gun safety and secure storage practices aren’t part of the routine safety conversations pediatricians have with families.“

—Dr. Annie Andrews in conversation with Everytown for Gun Safety⁴⁹Annie Andrews, MD, MSCR, clinical professor of pediatrics at Children’s National Hospital, in conversation with Kaelyn Forde, Everytown for Gun Safety, July 21, 2021.

Clinicians

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that pediatricians address firearm safety along with other safety precautions they routinely cover, such as the use of car seats, seat belts, and bike helmets, swimming pool safety, and locking up medications and household poisons. This includes asking parents about the presence of guns in the home and reminders about secure storage practices in their own homes and any homes their children may visit.⁵⁰Lois K. Lee et al., “Firearm-Related Injuries and Deaths in Children and Youth: Injury Prevention and Harm Reduction,” Pediatrics 150, no. 6 (2022): e2022060070, https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2022-060070. Research on the impact of these conversations suggests that clinicians can influence secure storage practices among their patients, especially when they provide free storage devices.⁵¹RAND, “Education Campaigns and Clinical Interventions for Promoting Safe Storage,” March 2, 2018,https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/safe-storage.html.

Journalists

Journalists can help their audiences understand this problem, support the development of solutions, and encourage behavior change by following these tips when covering shootings: 

• Avoid treating instances of gun violence as unavoidable tragedies; include resources about ways to prevent them from occurring, such as the importance of secure storage practices⁵²Bart Hammig, Abigail Bordelon, and Corrine Chandler, “Examining Media Reports of Pediatric Unintentional Firearm Injury Deaths for Prevention Messaging Concerning Secured Storage of Firearms: U.S., 2021–2022,” Injury Epidemiology 11, no. 6 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-024-00485-6. and laws, and avoid language (like “accidents”) that minimizes accountability.
• The #NotAnAccident Index describes how details are commonly missing in media reports, such as where a gun was stored when it was accessed and the type of gun used. Details on how the gun was stored can encourage behavior change among gun owners, and reporting the manufacturer and model of the firearm can help hold the gun industry accountable for gun violence and support the development of gun safety features.
• Use data from the #NotAnAccident Index, EveryShot, and/or EveryStat to contextualize incidents and the extent of the problem.
• Use a trauma-informed approach when interviewing survivors of gun violence. It’s important to keep in mind that survivors have experienced painful events, and it can be challenging to talk about them. Everytown can help connect journalists with survivors for interviews.

Secure Gun Storage Laws

Educating gun owners and changing storage practices are necessary to protect children’s lives. But given the scale of this challenge, policies that hold adults accountable for failing to securely store their firearms have the strength of evidence in their favor and are a critical part of the solution.

No current federal law requires gun owners to store their firearms securely. Federal law only requires gun dealers to provide a secure gun storage or gun safety device with the sale of every handgun.⁵³18 USC § 922(z)(1). It does not require that gun owners use the device.

In the absence of federal policy, states have enacted a variety of gun storage-related laws, as outlined earlier.

Research shows that the most effective laws for preventing unintentional child shootings hold accountable gun owners who fail to securely store firearms if a child is likely to access an unsecured gun—or the laws stipulate that if a minor does access a firearm, the person who failed to adequately secure the firearm can be held liable.

Laws that punish only the intentional or reckless provision of firearms to minors are not effective in protecting children; they should not be considered secure storage laws.

A 2020 study looking at the full range of child-access laws by state found a 59 percent reduction in unintentional firearm deaths among children ages 14 and younger from 1991 to 2016 in the states with the most stringent child-access prevention laws. The authors also found that laws with liability only in cases of recklessness were not associated with reduced firearm deaths among children in this age group.⁵⁴Hooman Alexander Azad et al., “Child Access Prevention Firearm Laws and Firearm Fatalities Among Children Aged 0 to 14 Years, 1991–2016,” JAMA Pediatrics 174, no. 5 (March 2, 2020): 463–69, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.6227.

Another study focusing on children hospitalized for firearm injuries in 2006 and 2009 found a similar result: Compared to states with no child-access laws, states with the strongest laws saw a 44 percent reduction in children hospitalized for firearm injuries related to unintentional shootings, most of them at the hands of other children or of themselves.⁵⁵Emma C. Hamilton et al., “Variability of Child Access Prevention Laws and Pediatric Firearm Injuries,” Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery 84, no. 4 (2018): 613–19, https://doi.org/10.1097/TA.0000000000001786.

Finally, a 2013 study of nonfatal gun injury data in 11 states found that secure storage laws were associated with a 26 percent reduction in self-inflicted gun injuries among children under age 18.⁵⁶Jeffrey DeSimone, Sara Markowitz, and Jing Xu, “Child Access Prevention Laws and Nonfatal Gun Injuries,” Southern Economic Journal 80, no. 1 (2013): 5–25, https://doi.org/10.4284/0038-4038-2011.333. One concern with these laws is that they tend not to be publicized widely enough after they are passed.⁵⁷Ali Rowhani-Rahbar et al., “Knowledge of State Gun Laws Among US Adults in Gun-Owning Households,” JAMA Network Open 4, no. 11 (2021): e2135141, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.35141. While greater awareness would be ideal, a recent RAND study has suggested that one need not have direct knowledge of specific storage laws to be impacted by them—influencers in the broader gun-owning community contribute to changing the conversation about gun storage and impacting behaviors.⁵⁸RAND, “The Effects of Child-Access Prevention Laws,” July 16, 2024, https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/child-access-prevention.html.

Our dataset on incidents over the past 10 years backs up what research has found: States with the strongest laws related to preventing firearm access by children have the lowest rates of child shootings. Our analysis shows that, depending on the type of law, rates of unintentional shootings by children were 31 to 35 percent lower in states with secure storage laws than in states without such laws.

Conclusion

Unintentional shootings by children are not accidents. They are a near-daily reality of life in the US today. But they don’t have to be. They are almost always preventable with secure firearm storage practices, awareness, and policies.

Everytown has methodically tracked these incidents over 10 years. We have learned that shootings by children are most often also shootings of children, that a third of these shootings are by preschoolers who gained access to a loaded firearm, and that when children unintentionally shoot someone else, the victim is most often a sibling or friend. We have also learned that nearly all of the more than 3,500 incidents (97 percent) resulted in a single person being wounded or killed,⁵⁹Of the 3,580 unintentional shooting incidents, 3,464 (96.8 percent) resulted in one person shot; 113 (3.2 percent) resulted in two people shot; and 3 (0.1 percent) resulted in three people shot. underscoring the fact that the child never meant to inflict casualties.

These realizations, plus our data on when and where the shootings occurred, help point to the times and places where prevention efforts must focus. These shootings happened mostly in or around someone’s home and during times (weekends and summer) when children were most likely to be at home. But they also occurred in some states many times more than in others. The variation between states with the highest and lowest rates of these shootings aligns with the strength of the states’ laws holding gun owners accountable for storing their firearms securely.

These avoidable tragedies cause physical and emotional suffering that persists far beyond the initial incident and leave scars far beyond the immediate families of those involved. Preventing them will require efforts from every sector of society. Gun owners must store all of their guns securely at all times; parents need to ask about guns and gun storage at any place their children will visit; schools, the medical community, gun shops and gun storage device sellers, journalists, and others play a vital role in educating the community about secure gun storage; and lawmakers and community members need to support laws that research has shown are effective in reducing unintentional shootings.

Acknowledgments

Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund would like to acknowledge Monika Goyal of Children’s National Hospital, Ali Rowhani-Rahbar of the University of Washington, and SGM (Ret.) P. Schoch of Everytown for Gun Safety’s Veterans Advisory Council, for their insightful reviews of the report, and Kaelyn Forde for survivor interviews. We are grateful to you all.