Deltoid

If you just want to look at accidental death, I would note that most of the decrease in fatal gun accidents in the US occured before there was an increase in handgun ownership

Table 2.1 of Kleck's "Point Blank" shows that handgun sales jumped dramatically around 1965 -- from around 0.5M per year to 1-2M per year afterwards. This is presumably the reason for the increase in the percentage of households owning handguns from 16% in the early sixties to 25% in the late eighties. (Table 2.2 of Kleck)

Table 7.1 of Kleck shows that the fatal gun accident rate declined from 2.4 per 100k population in 1933 to 1.21 in 1965 and then to 0.57 in 1987. That is a decrease of 1.19 before handgun ownership increased, and a decrease 0.64 afterwards. The rate of decrease was slower after 1965 than before.

Chris BeHanna wrote:

From 1967 to 1987, the U.S. accidental gun death rate declined by more than two thirds while the handgun stock simultaneously increased by 273%. (Kates et al, "Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda?" Tenn. L. Rev., Spring, 1995 -- I'd give you a page number but the article is at home).

Page 567: "Over the twenty year period 1967-1986, the number of handguns increased 173%, while the fatal gun accident rate decreased by almost two-thirds." Dear me, you seem to have embellished Kates' factoid by changing "almost two-thirds" to "more than two-thirds" and 173% to 273%. That wasn't a very nice thing to do, Chris.

Mr Kates has also done some embellishing of his own, though with a bit more subtlety than Chris has. Firstly he has chosen to use 1967-1986 as his twenty year period. 1967 just so happened to be a year with an unusually large number of fatal accidents. Kleck's tables actually go to 1987, and if he had used 1968-1987 he would only have been able to claim a decrease of one half instead of two thirds. Secondly, notice that he has compared the change in the gun accident rate (number of gun accidents divided by the size of the population) with the change in the absolute number of handguns (not divided by the size of the population). Once again this skews the comparison in the direction Kates prefers. A less misleading version would be: "Over the twenty year period 1968-1987, the number of handguns per person increased by 90%, while the fatal gun accident rate decreased by one half."

Even this one has problems: most of the new handguns went to households that already had handguns -- the percentage of households with handguns did not increase that much. A better version might be: ""Over the twenty year period 1968-1987, the fraction of households with handguns increased by 5 percentage points, while the fatal gun accident rate decreased by one half."

This still shows that an increase in handgun ownership was associated with a decrease in gun accidents, but obviously this wasn't dramatic for Kates.