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Study: Americans Overwhelmingly Own Firearms for Protection

Monday, August 5, 2024

Study: Americans Overwhelmingly Own Firearms for Protection

NRA members know that there are plenty of excellent ways to exercise Second Amendment rights, such as continuing America’s hunting heritage, enjoying or competing in the shooting sports, or developing a firearm collection. However, the most important aspect of the Second Amendment is that it preserves the individual right to keep and bear arms to defend oneself, family, and community.

A new study published in the journal Injury Prevention on July 25 shows that protection is the overwhelming reason Americans exercise their Second Amendment rights. Titled, “Firearm ownership for protection in the USA, 2023: results from a nationally representative survey,” the authors from the University of Michigan found, “Of all firearm owners, 78.8%... owned a firearm for protection.”

Moreover, the results suggest that more than half of gun owners at least sometimes exercise their Right-to-Carry. The researchers determined, “58.1%... carried a firearm outside their home in the last 12 months.”

As the researchers pointed out, the percentage of gun owners who cite protection as their reason for owning a firearm has increased in recent years. Further, the results comport with other research on this topic. A Pew Research Center survey from June 2023 found that 72-percent of gun owners cited protection as a “major reason” they own a gun and 91-percent cited it as a “major” or “minor” reason.

Another interesting excerpt from the Injury Prevention article found,

Gender and race/ethnicity emerged as robust sociodemographic correlates for ownership for protection. Women, black and Hispanic people were more likely to own firearms for protection than for other reasons. Decision tree analyses identified that black and Asian women (98.8%) almost exclusively owned for protection and, while men had a lower overall prevalence, owning for protection was more common among black (88.4%) than white men (69.7%; figure 2). Other characteristics, including political affiliation, were not significantly associated with motivation for firearm ownership;

This suggests that when anti-gun politicians target the types of firearms most useful for protection they are disproportionately harming women and minority gun owners.

As one might expect, some of the regime press wasn’t too keen on the results out of Ann Arbor. In a supposed news item on the study, that read more like an opinion piece, a CNN writer felt the need to refute the effectiveness of firearms for self-defense. The piece stated, “data from the National Crime Victimization Survey shows that guns are rarely used in self-defense during personal contact crimes.”

This ignores the profound evidence showing that firearms are used for protection at least hundreds of thousands of times per year.

In 1993, Florida State University Criminology Professor Gary Kleck conducted the National Self-Defense Survey to study the prevalence of defensive gun uses (DGUs), the results of which were published in a 1995 Journal of Law and Criminology article titled, “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun.” The article stated that survey data indicated that “each year in the U.S. there are about 2.2 to 2.5 million DGUs of all types by civilians against humans.”

After Kleck’s findings were published, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted its own surveys of DGUs in its Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey from 1996 to 1998. However, the agency didn’t make its research public at the time – perhaps because the results did not conform to the CDC’s institutional anti-gun bias.

The CDC survey data finally came to light in 2018. Analyzing the CDC survey along with his own survey, Kleck found that the CDC data indicated that there are likely more than 1 million DGUs per year.

A subsequent survey, conducted in 2021 by Georgetown University Political Economist William English, placed the number of DGUs somewhere in between what the CDC and Kleck’s survey data indicated. In a research paper summarizing his findings, English noted,

The survey further finds that approximately a third of gun owners (31.1%) have used a firearm to defend themselves or their property, often on more than one occasion, and it estimates that guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 1.67 million incidents per year.

Regardless of the media naysayers, gun rights supporters should take heart in that the data clearly show that an enormous portion, at the very least in the tens of millions, of Americans own firearms to exercise their Second Amendment right to armed self-defense.

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North Carolina: Update on Permitless Carry

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

North Carolina: Update on Permitless Carry

Last week the North Carolina General Assembly briefly returned from recess and re-referred Senate Bill 50, Freedom to Carry NC, to the House Rules Committee.

Federal Court Strikes Down Biden Administration’s “Engaged in the Business” Rule in NRA Case

Thursday, October 2, 2025

Federal Court Strikes Down Biden Administration’s “Engaged in the Business” Rule in NRA Case

Yesterday, in Butler v. Bondi, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama held that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives exceeded its statutory authority by issuing its 2024 Final Rule expanding ...

First Affirmative Lawsuit in Support of Gun Owners Filed by Trump’s DOJ

News  

Monday, October 6, 2025

First Affirmative Lawsuit in Support of Gun Owners Filed by Trump’s DOJ

California officials’ egregious foot-dragging over the issuance of carry permits has finally attracted the ire of the federal Department of Justice (DOJ). 

President Trump’s GOP Leads Polling on Crime and Guns, To No Surprise

News  

Monday, October 6, 2025

President Trump’s GOP Leads Polling on Crime and Guns, To No Surprise

A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll revealed that Americans know the President Donald Trump-led Republican Party has a better plan than their Democratic Party opponents on crime and gun control.

NRA Files Amicus Brief in Fifth Circuit Case Challenging the Federal Switchblade Act

Friday, October 3, 2025

NRA Files Amicus Brief in Fifth Circuit Case Challenging the Federal Switchblade Act

Yesterday, the National Rifle Association filed an amicus brief in Knife Rights, Inc. v. Bondi, urging the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas’s decision upholding the Federal ...

Trump Administration Repeals Biden Era Firearms Export Crackdown

News  

Monday, October 6, 2025

Trump Administration Repeals Biden Era Firearms Export Crackdown

Last Monday, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) at the U.S. Department of Commerce published a final rule that reversed a crackdown on the commercial export of firearms from the U.S. to other countries.

Trust in Mass Media Craters to New Lows, in Single Digits With Republicans

News  

Monday, October 6, 2025

Trust in Mass Media Craters to New Lows, in Single Digits With Republicans

There’s an old saying that rings especially true to Second Amendment supporters: If you don’t read the news, you’re uninformed.

Alphabet Eases the Reins on Censorship; Will Gun Content Eventually Benefit?

News  

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Alphabet Eases the Reins on Censorship; Will Gun Content Eventually Benefit?

With the free speech debate recently co-opted by one TV host’s use of false and incendiary remarks about his political opponents, it might have been easy to miss another important First Amendment story last week. 

Canada’s Public Safety Minister on Gun Ban & Confiscation: “Don’t Ask Me to Explain the Logic”

News  

Monday, September 29, 2025

Canada’s Public Safety Minister on Gun Ban & Confiscation: “Don’t Ask Me to Explain the Logic”

There have been multiple developments on the Canadian gun grab and ban in the last few days, but the most astounding has got to be a leaked bombshell recording of the Liberal Public Safety Minister, ...

U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Challenge to Hawaii’s Private Property Default Carry Ban

Friday, October 3, 2025

U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Challenge to Hawaii’s Private Property Default Carry Ban

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the petition for certiorari in Wolford v. Lopez, a challenge to Hawaii’s law forbidding carry on private property open to the public (such as restaurants, gas stations, and grocery stores) ...

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NRA ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.