Guns used in self-defense

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used to post figures on guns used in self-defense but removed those figures recently and replaced them with more general language: “Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked, populations studied, time frame, and other factors related to study design. Given the wide variability in estimates, additional research is necessary to understand defensive gun use prevalence, frequency, circumstances, and outcomes.”

Many instances go unreported.

The most recent National Crime Victimization Survey, a twice-yearly poll of crime victims conducted by the federal government, was posted April 2. The latest figures show 2% of victims of nonfatal violent crime — that includes rape, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault — and 1% of property crime victims use guns in self-defense. According to the survey, firearms were used defensively in 166,900 nonfatal violent crimes between 2014 and 2018, which works out to an average of 33,380 per year. Over the same period, defensive gun use was reported in 183,300 property crimes, or an average of 36,660 per year. Taken together, that’s 70,040 instances of defensive gun use per year.

A Bureau of Justice Statistics report with data from 2016 estimated 247,400 prisoners possessed a firearm during their offense. 68% used it.

Pro gun rights activists cite a series of telephone surveys conducted in the early 1990s by a criminologist and self-described “gun control skeptic” named Gary Kleck that extrapolate guns being used in defense to be in millions per year.

Sources: The Associated Press, NRA, Gallup, Pew Research Center, Bureau of Justice Statistics,