John Lott, 1998 interview. Two excepts:
The horrific shooting in Arkansas occurred in one of the few places
where having guns was already illegal. These laws risk creating
situations in which the good guys cannot defend themselves from the bad
ones. I have studied multiple victim public shootings in the United
States from 1977 to 1995. These were incidents in which at least two or
more people were killed and or injured in a public place; in order to
focus on the type of shooting seen in Arkansas, shootings that were the
byproduct of another crime, such as robbery, were excluded. The effect
of “shall-issue” laws on these crimes has been dramatic. When states
passed these laws, the number of multiple-victim shootings declined by
84 percent. Deaths from these shootings plummeted on average by 90
percent, and injuries by 82 percent.
and
The total number of accidental gun deaths each year is about 1,300 and
each year such accidents take the lives of 200 children 14 years of age
and under. However, these regrettable numbers of lives lost need to be
put into some perspective with the other risks children face. Despite
over 200 million guns owned by between 76 to 85 million people, the
children killed is much smaller than the number lost through bicycle
accidents, drowning, and fires. Children are 14.5 times more likely to
die from car accidents than from accidents involving guns.