17,002 cases were suicides... They would have found some other way to do it.
12,352 were homicides... this number will increase if you take the lawful persons gun away.
1340 were accidental... It is 1992, and schoolmates Yoshihiro Hattori and Webb Haymaker have been invited to a Halloween party. Yoshi, a 16-year-old exchange student and avid dancer, wears a white tuxedo like John Travolta's in Saturday Night Fever. By mistake, they stop at a house up the block from their destination. No one answers the doorbell.
Inside are Rodney and Bonnie Peairs. She opens a side door momentarily, sees the boys, and yells to her husband, "Get the gun." He does (it is a .44 magnum Smith & Wesson revolver) and reopens the door. Yoshi and Webb, by now back at the sidewalk, start to return. Yoshi exclaims, "We're here for the party!"
"Freeze!" responds Peairs. Yoshi does not understand the idiom. He approaches the house, repeating his statement about the party. Peairs shoots him once in the chest. Thirty minutes later, Yoshi dies in an ambulance. Bonnie Peairs would later testify, "There was no thinking involved." (taken from the article)
this happens. yea, and it shouldn't. if you own a gun you should understand that scenarios like this do happen. the last part says it all "There was no thinking involved."