Guns—Injuries and Fatalities - Guns And Self-defense: The Studies

It is impossible to determine accurately how many times each year guns are used for self-defense. But there are estimates. A 2003 survey (National Crime Victimization Survey, 1993–2001, U.S. Department of Justice, September 2003) records the self-defensive actions of victims. Table 6.5 shows that 60.5% of victims of violent crime reported taking self-defensive measures during the incident. Most victims used non-aggressive means, like getting help or trying to escape. Thirteen percent of victims tried to threaten or attack their offender—1.4% of these victims used a gun to ward off their offender.

Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist and researcher, concluded that people defend themselves with firearms from 2.2 million to 2.5 million times a year ("Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun," The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, vol. 86, no. 1, Fall 1995). If this estimate is accurate, the defensive use of firearms might save as many as seventy-five lives for every life lost to gun-related crime, because firearms are involved in about 32,000 deaths (murders, suicides, and accidents) every year.

According to Kleck, the large number of defensive gun uses (DGUs) has been confirmed in at least sixteen surveys ("What Are the Risks and Benefits of Keeping a Gun in the Home?" Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 280, no. 5, August 5, 1998). Evidence from the surveys suggested to Kleck that DGUs are effective in preventing injuries and that the number of defensive uses in the home is about six times higher than the number of criminal/aggressive uses in the same setting.

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, agreed with Kleck's research, concluding that firearms preserved lives and thus saved injury costs ("Health Care and Firearms," Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia, vol. 83, March 1994). Pratt wrote that the use of guns in self-defense saves lives and that guns prevent fifteen times more injuries than they cause, assuming 162,000 gun deaths and injuries annually.

But in contrast to Kleck's estimate of 2.2 million to 2.5 million DGUs each year, there are only about 108,000 incidents of self-defense with a firearm annually, according to the 1994 National Crime Victimization Survey. The telephone sample that Kleck used is larger than that of the national survey. Kleck asserted that many people who used their guns would probably withhold such information from a government agent; therefore the national survey must under-report DGUs. Most firearms scholars have relied on the estimates of either Kleck or the National Crime Victimization Survey.

Tom W. Smith of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago concluded that both estimates were "off the mark" ("A Call for a Truce in the DGU War," The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, vol. 87, no, 4, Summer 1997). In Smith's opinion, the National Crime Victimization Survey estimates were too low and Kleck's estimates were too high. Smith said more studies are needed.