When it comes to the frequency with which minors are involved in accidental shootings, Connecticut is among the lowest on the list.

In a new, comprehensive data set compiled by the Associated Press and USA Today Network, Connecticut had a rate of 0.56 accidental shootings involving minors per 1 million population, compared to a national rate of 3.41.

The data set sought to use news reports and police and court records to find and verify all such shootings between Jan. 1, 2014, and June 30, 2016 — whether a minor age 17 or younger was the afflicted or was behind the trigger.

Games such as Russian roulette and shootings involving pellet or BB guns were not included.

All told, the reporters found that 699 minors were injured while another 327 were killed in more than 1,000 shooting incidents across the country during that time period.

According to the data, 111 of those deaths came during 2014 — the same year the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted only 74 accidental shooting deaths among minors.

In Connecticut, the reporters could verify only two accidental shootings involving minors: One in Killingly on Aug. 5, 2014, and another in Monroe on March 8, 2015.

In Killingly, a 22-year-old man was playing with a rifle in a hallway when it discharged and killed a 16-year-old who was inside one of the home’s bedrooms.

In Monroe, a 44-year-old man pulled the trigger of his pistol to double-check that it was empty. It wasn’t. The bullet struck his 10-year-old son in the cheek, but did not kill the child.

Only Rhode Island, New Hampshire and the District of Columbia, where no incidents were recorded, came in below Connecticut.

Scott Wilson, a New London resident who heads the Groton-based Connecticut Citizens Defense League, wasn’t surprised to hear that Connecticut had few such shootings.

“Some of the states, like Connecticut ... I would say a lot of educational information has reached responsible gun owners,” Wilson said.

Himself a victim of an accidental shooting as a 14-year-old, Wilson tries to make sure his organization is one of those disseminating such information.

“When I was a kid, I was accidentally shot by a relative who ended up with a gun that he had brought over from a friend’s parents’ place,” Wilson said. “I nearly died.”

Once he pulled through, he had to go through physical therapy for a year to regain use of his affected arm, he said.

“We implore those who own firearms to make sure they’re safe and in control and out of reach of children,” Wilson said.

Connecticut Citizens Defense League also works with Project ChildSafe to educate children in the safe use of firearms once they’re old enough to be responsible for them.

Wilson said in addition to education, things such as Connecticut’s criminally negligent storage statute, which has been in place since 1990, might encourage gun owners to practice safer storage.

Under the statute, a gun owner can be charged if he or she leaves a loaded gun in an area where a minor can get to it and a minor then uses it to injure or kill himself or another person.

Andrew Jay McClurg, a professor at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law who’s been studying and writing about firearms laws for years, said he believes rates of gun ownership likely have the biggest impact. As gun ownership increases, he hypothesized, so, too, does the number of accidental shootings.

Indeed, a survey of the AP’s data shows many of the states with the lowest gun ownership rates — New Jersey, California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia — are in the bottom 10 in terms of accidental shootings involving minors. The opposite also is true.

Like Wilson, McClurg said states with more stringent gun laws — and, frequently, less gun ownership — are apt to have more educational programs for those who do purchase firearms.

McClurg, however, said he doubts criminally negligent storage statutes have much of an impact. Even in the 29 states where some version of one exists, the charge is rarely brought in accidental shootings, especially if it was a parent who killed his or her child.

“I’m doubtful most reckless owners are even aware those laws exist,” he said.

Although he’s not against it, McClurg said people tend to overestimate the effect of educating children about guns’ dangers and asking them to stay away from them.

In one study published in 2001, Dr. Arthur Kellerman and other researchers repeatedly left pairs of boys 8 to 12 alone in a room with an inoperative .38-caliber handgun in a drawer. About 75 percent of the kids found the gun, close to 66 percent handled it and 33 percent pulled the trigger. Most of the boys said they’d had instruction in gun safety in the past.

In McClurg’s eyes, the only way to drastically reduce accidental shootings involving minors would be for more states to adopt laws like Massachusetts’ — in which owners must keep their firearms secured in a locked container or with a tamper-resistant lock when they aren’t being used.

He said other developed countries, including Canada, have such requirements, and typically their rates of accidental, violent and self-inflicted shootings, as well as gun thefts, are lower than those of the United States.

Wilson said his organization wouldn’t welcome a law that would require owners to keep their guns locked up and unloaded.

“Compelling people to lock up their guns in their private homes would be a push far beyond what the government’s authority should be,” he said. “I think people need to know, as they use their own common sense, that they will be able to gain access to their guns in a home invasion and will be able to protect themselves and their families.”

McClurg said he’s been searching for years to find an instance where someone was harmed specifically because he or she couldn’t get to locked-up guns. He said he hasn’t been able to.

The AP isn’t the only group that’s set out to nail down the number of accidental shootings in the country. Gun Violence Archive and Everytown For Gun Safety have compiled their own lists, too, and each also found more cases than the CDC did.

According to Everytown, the reason for that is likely because many medical examiners take the word homicide at its root — a “person who kills another” — and classify even accidental shootings as homicides.

Regardless, both McClurg and Wilson said accidental shootings involving minors, while tragic, aren’t necessarily the most pressing issue.

McClurg pointed to other gun violence, suicides by gun and gun thefts as issues deserving immediate attention.

Wilson noted that even if the CDC has undercounted how many minors die because of accidental shootings, it still wouldn't top the list of accidental causes of death for that age group.

“It’s sad when a child loses his life by a handgun, but it’s the same with swimming pools that had unlocked gates,” Wilson said. “There are all kinds of ways minors can die by accident. We’re working our hardest so guns are not one of them.”

l.boyle@theday.com