https://www.ammoland.com/2014/07/danger-to-young-children-5-gallon-buckets-or-guns/#axzz7Mj4i91IU
Drownings of children under five were fairly consistent from 1999 to 2010, so it seems reasonable to believe that drowning in buckets have dropped about as much as the general figures. That would put five gallon bucket drownings at .89 x 27, or 24 per year. The number is small enough that no one seems to track exactly how many child drownings occur with five gallon buckets. It is a rare event, but it happens.
Consumer Product Safety Commission data revealed 160 bucket-related drownings
The number of children under the age of five that die in gun accidents is tracked more rigorously. This is in part because gun accidents are tracked as a separate number, and part because bucket drownings are counted as part of total drownings. The latest number of fatal firearms accidents per year for children under the age of five was 19, recorded in 2007. Again, this is a very rare event. So while both firearms and five gallon buckets are involved in fatal accidents for young children, and the numbers are tiny, five gallon buckets seem to be more likely to be involved in a fatal accident.
To be fair, both numbers are so small as to be statistically insignificant. In a country of over 300 million people, these fall into the “noise” category. That does not help if it is your child that is injured or dies. In nearly all of these cases, it is adults who made the bad decisions. The vast majority of the children drowned in buckets were left unattended; the vast majority of the young children killed in firearms accidents were shot by an adult firing the gun.
