Each year, Utah sees its share of accidental injuries caused by firearms. When state health officials looked carefully at the hundreds of injuries that required emergency treatment in hospitals, they found most resulted from lapses in the most basic elements of gun safety.
Nearly three-quarters of all unintentional injuries in the state are to males between the ages of 15 and 44, most of whom accidentally shoot themselves while mishandling or cleaning the weapons. With funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Utah streamlined its data collection on gun injuries and used that information to create a public service campaign to help prevent accidental gun injuries.
