Estimates of frequency
Estimates over the number of defensive gun uses vary wildly, depending on the study's definition of a defensive gun use, survey design, country, population, criteria, time-period studied, and other factors. Low-end estimates are in the range of 55,000 to 80,000 incidents per year, while high end estimates reach 4.7 million per year. A May 2014 Harvard Injury Control Research Center survey about firearms and suicide completed by 150 firearms researchers found that only 8% of firearm researchers agreed that 'In the United States, guns are used in self-defense far more often than they are used in crime'. "Discussion over the number and nature of DGU and the implications to gun control policy came to a head in the late 1990s. Estimates of DGU from theKleck and Gertz, and Cook and Ludwig
A commonly cited 1995 study by Kleck and Gertz estimated that between 2.1 and 2.5 million DGUs occur in the United States each year.J.N. Schulman, Guns, Crimes and Self-defense, Orange County Reg., Sept. 19, 1993, at 3. After Kleck and Gertz accounted for telescoping, their estimate was reduced to 2.1 million DGU per year. Kleck and Gertz conducted this survey in 1992, and Kleck began publicizing the 2.5 million DGU per year estimate in 1993. By 1997, the 2.5 million per year number from Kleck & Gertz' study had been cited by news articles, editorial writers, and theNational Crime Victimization Survey
A 1994 study examined NCVS data and concluded that between 1987 and 1990, there were approximately 258,460 incidents in which firearms were used defensively in the United States, for an annual average of 64,615. The same study said that "Firearm self-defense is rare compared with gun crimes." An article published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, drawing its DGU from the NCVS, said: "In 1992 offenders armed with handguns committed a record 931,000 violent crimes ... On average in 1987-92 about 83,000 crime victims per year used a firearm to defend themselves or their property. Three-fourths of the victims who used a firearm for defense did so during a violent crime; a fourth, during a theft, household burglary, or motor vehicle theft." A 2013 study, also released by the BJS, found that less than 1% of nonfatal violent crime victims during the 2007-2011 period reported using a gun to defend themselves. The same study reported that "The percentage of nonfatal violent victimizations involving firearm use in self defense remained stable at under 2% from 1993 to 2011.", reporting 235,700 instances of defensive use of a firearm between 2007-2011 Cook and Ludwig said of the NCVS, NSPOF, and Kleck surveys: "The key explanation for the difference between the 108,000 NCVS estimate for the annual number of defensive gun uses and the several million from the surveys discussed earlier is that NCVS avoids the false-positive problem by limiting defensive gun use questions to persons who first reported that they were crime victims. Most NCVS respondents never have a chance to answer the defensive gun use question, falsely or otherwise."Lott research
Hemenway research
In 2000, Hemenway published a survey which found that "Guns are used to threaten and intimidate far more often than they are used in self defense"; also that year, he published another survey which found that "criminal gun use is far more common than self-defense gun use." Both of these surveys argued that many defensive gun uses may not be in the best interests of society. Also in 2000, Hemenway and his colleagues conducted a small survey that found that guns in the home were used more often to intimidate family members (13 respondents) than in self-defense (2 respondents). The same study stated that its results suggested that most self-defense gun uses did not occur in the home, and that non-gun weapons are used more often to thwart crime than guns are. A later survey by Hemenway et al. that included 5,800 California adolescents found that about 0.3% of these adolescents reported having used a gun in self-defense, whereas, in the same study, 4% of those adolescents reported that someone had threatened them with a gun. In a 2015 study co-authored with Sara Solnick, Hemenway analyzed data from the NCVS from 2007 to 2011 and identified only 127 instances of DGU.Other
A study published in 2013 by theBenefits
The same data indicating that DGU against criminals is uncommon also indicates that it is often effective. A 2002 study looking at instances of DGU where convicted offenders were the defenders found that DGUs "are not likely to provide similar social benefits, implying that prevalence estimates may not simultaneously estimate social benefits." Another study published the same year found that DGU is an effective deterrent against injury for some groups of people, but not others; notable groups for whom DGU did not provide benefits in this study included women, people living in rural areas, and those living in low-income homes. A 2009 study reported that gun owners were more likely to be shot in an assault than were non-gun owners, and concluded that the chances of DGU being successful for residents of urban areas may be low. Another 2009 study of NCVS data found that DGU was "most often effective at helping the victim" in the contexts in which it occurred, with an average of 92% of victims reporting that their DGU had been beneficial for them. A 2013Predictors of defensive gun use
Individuals who use guns defensively tend not to have extremely punitive attitudes toward criminals, but people with punitive attitudes may be somewhat more likely to own guns, and, thus, to use them defensively. A 2009 study found no support for the "See also
*References
{{Reflist Self-defense Gun politics in the United States