CDC Defensive Use of Guns Study

In 2013 the CDC performed a study on firearm use and included research about defensive use of guns. The study was never published (no reason provided, but we have our theories). However, the conclusion of the study was that guns are used to defend a person between 500,000 and more than 3 million times each year. Following is the excerpt from the study about the defensive use of guns (pages 16-17).

Defensive Use of Guns

Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996; Kleck, 2001a). Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010). On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/18319/chapter/3