Myth: Private ownership of guns is not effective in preventing crime

Fact: Every year, people in the United States use a gun to defend themselves against criminals an estimated 2,500,000 times – more than 6,500 people a day, or once every 13 seconds.¹ Of these instances, 15.6% of the people using a firearm defensively stated that they “almost certainly” saved their lives by doing so.

Firearms are used 60 times more often to protect lives than to take lives.

Fact: In 83.5% (2,087,500) of these successful gun defenses, the attacker either threatened or used force first, proving that guns are very well suited for self-defense.

Fact: Of the 2,500,000 times citizens use guns to defend themselves, 92% merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers.

Fact: Less than 8% of the time does a citizen wound his or her attacker, and in less than one in a thousand instances is the attacker killed.²

Fact: For every accidental death, suicide, or homicide with a firearm, 10 lives are saved through defensive use.

Fact: When using guns in self-defense³:

• 83% of robbery victims were not injured.

• 88% of assault victims were not hurt.

• 76% of all self-defense use of guns never involve firing a single shot.

Fact: After the implementation of Canada’s 1977 gun controls prohibiting handgun possession for protection, the “breaking and entering” crime rate rose 25%, surpassing the American rate.⁴

This is an excerpt from “Gun Facts” by Guy Smith, available free from http://www.gunfacts.info