Good suggestion Axamari. I would extend it to all dogs.
In response to your question...First, I wouldn't call it a fun question but a serious one.
A dog can get out of your control. A gun can get out of your control.
Added agony: Justice is haphazard after kids’ gun deaths
"Children under age 12 die from gun accidents in the United States about once a week, on average.
Almost every death begins with the same basic circumstances:
an unsecured and loaded gun, a guardian’s lapse in attention."
With ~52 child deaths a year it appears irresponsible gun ownership
is responsible for more child deaths than irresponsible dog ownership.
But, let's keep in mind this isn't a contest to see which is worse. This is part of a search for solutions.
Examples from the article....
"In 2015, a babysitter in North Carolina was charged with involuntary manslaughter
when a 2-year-old she was watching shot herself with a 20-gauge shotgun she found on a table"
"a 9-year-old boy was shot by his brother. The sitter had briefly left the boys unattended, and they found his loaded .38 Special in his pickup."
"5-year-old granddaughter found a loaded pistol under their[the grandparents] pillow and shot herself in the neck."
"a grandmother pleaded guilty to a minor gun charge and received probation
after a 6-year-old boy found a revolver in a bedroom closet and shot himself
"In a country with almost as many guns as there are people, it’s not unusual to find loaded weapons within children’s reach.
One study published in 2008 in the journal Health Education Research found that
firearms are present in about one-third of all homes with children nationwide.
Guns in half of those homes were kept unlocked; guns in one-sixth of them were kept loaded.
If we could find the data it would be interesting to compare the legal outcomes of irresponsible dog ownership compared to irresponsible gun ownership.
The article does give some info with respect to irresponsible gun ownership...
"...about half of those deaths [the 152 child deaths mention in the article] led to a criminal charge,
usually against adults who police and prosecutors say should have watched the children more closely or secured their guns more carefully.
The rest of the time, officials decided the grown-ups had broken no laws, or perhaps had simply suffered enough.
In many cases, there was little to distinguish those deaths that led to a criminal charge from those that did not.
Felons were the only exception. Because it is illegal for anyone who has been convicted of a felony to possess a gun,
almost every felon involved in an accidental gun death faced criminal charges.
“You feel an enormous amount of sympathy for these parents because it’s the most unimaginable loss there is when you lose a child.
Prosecutors understandably struggle with the deterrent value with filing charges,” said Jennifer Collins,
dean of Southern Methodist University Law School, who has studied prosecutions of negligent parents.
The same pattern plays out when children drown in swimming pools or suffocate in hot cars.
Collins studied such cases a decade ago and found that about half ended in prosecutions;
much of the time, prosecutors applied what she called a “suffering discount” as they looked for a balance between deterrence, retribution and mercy."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The government’s most recent official count of gun deaths, by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, identified 77 minors who died in gun accidents in 2015, but the AP and USA TODAY counted 146 for that year, including 96 in which a child either shot themselves or another child
One of the article's presented conclusions could well include deaths from dog attacks....
"By either measure, gun accidents account for a small share of children’s deaths in the United States.
About the same amount of children die each year in hot cars and poisoning incidents.
About five times as many die in fires and 12 times as many drown."
I would like to know how many die as a result of irresponsible alcohol usage, but we'll save investigation that for another time.
Some more outcomes of irresponsible gun ownership (IGO)
"Mercer kept eight firearms at his home in Lake Charles, La., midway between Houston and New Orleans.
He cleaned them one morning in 2015 before leaving for work, but forgot one, a semiautomatic Glock pistol, on a couch.
He texted his girlfriend, Angel Savoy, to put them away before she got home with Alexis.
In the time it took Savoy to put the family dog outside, the toddler fired the Glock through her eyelid.
Alexis died at the hospital a short time later."
"Wendy Brock’s son, Jaxon White, had turned 3 two days earlier. His family celebrated with a party.
Sunday was a beautiful day, and the boy was out in the yard of the family’s home in Jefferson, Ga., about an hour outside Atlanta,
riding his four-wheeler and playing with a new bubble machine.
His parents, Brock and Roger White Jr., were washing Roger’s pickup in the driveway.
The boy climbed in the open driver’s side door, found the handgun his father kept in the center console and stood on the seat.
His father, nearby, screamed the boy’s name to tell him to put down the gun, which was pointed up as Jaxon looked down the barrel.
Then, a loud pop.
The boy collapsed from a gunshot wound to the head.
His father cradled him in his arms as he screamed for Wendy to call 911.
Jaxon was breathing, barely, when medics arrived.
His pulse stopped in the ambulance.
District Attorney J. Bradley Smith closed the case without filing charges, citing a lack of criminal intent.
"While looking in hindsight, additional measures could have been taken to prevent this tragedy,
the lack of those measures does not rise to the level of reckless conduct or criminal negligence,” he wrote in a letter to the police.
“I see no purpose in punishing this family any further.”
"Some states have laws meant to limit children’s access to loaded weapons.
But the “child access prevention rules” have run into opposition from gun-rights groups including the National Rifle Association.
A spokeswoman for the NRA, Jennifer Baker, said the group opposes “one-size fits all government mandates”
and believes existing laws are enough to handle gun accidents.
Both the NRA and gun control groups have focused instead on education campaigns that encourage parents to safeguard their weapons. (a model for our response to dog attacks as well?)