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Statistics like this are averages. Obviously, they don't take into account any actions an individual may take to reduce their risk of a particular outcome.
That being said, I checked the CDC data for 2003 (latest released), and it shows a total number of accidental firearm deaths of 752. Just to pick something unusual off the list, hernias killed 1617 and tuberculosis killed 704.
2003 US population is estimated at 290,788,976. Thats 1 in 386,687. That's not the risk, that's the actual number for 2003. If you assume that it will remain at a similar rate, I would call that a pretty low likelihood. Obviously, intelligent precautions will reduce individual risk even further.
The way they come up with a number like 1 in whatever over a lifetime is to assume that the risk is constant every year and multiply it by the avg. life expectancy. If the rate is 1 in 386,687 for every year you live and the life expectancy is 79 years, you would get a chance of 1 in 4894 over a lifetime.
Seeing as how that's pretty close to the number cited, I would guess that's how they calculated it.
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