Americans Rarely Use Guns for Self-Defense Despite Widespread Belief

The common narrative that armed Americans routinely use their firearms to protect themselves and their loved ones from threats has been dealt a significant blow by new research suggesting such scenarios are exceedingly rare.

A comprehensive study published March 14 in JAMA Network Open revealed that less than 1% of gun owners reported using their weapon defensively in the past year, while exposure to gun violence was dramatically more common.

The nationally representative survey of 3,000 Americans with access to firearms found that an overwhelming 92% had never used their weapon defensively in their entire lifetime.

“Adults with firearm access are far more likely to be exposed to gun violence than they are to defend themselves with their firearms,” said Michael Anestis, executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at Rutgers and lead author of the study. “It’s not that defensive gun use never happens, but the notion that firearm owners are routinely saving their own lives or those of their loved ones by using a firearm in self–defense simply is not backed up by the data.”

The findings challenge one of the most persistent arguments used to support permissive gun-carrying policies in the United States, where many owners cite self-defense as their primary reason for owning firearms.

The contrast between defensive use and exposure to gun violence was particularly stark. In the previous year, nearly one-third (32.7%) of respondents reported hearing gunshots in their neighborhood, while only 0.7% had told or shown a perceived threat that they had a firearm, and a mere 0.2% had fired at a perceived threat.

Over their lifetimes, more than a third (34.4%) of gun owners reported knowing someone who died by firearm suicide, while just 1.2% had ever fired at a perceived threat.

The research team, which collected data from 8,009 adults in May 2024, found that those who had previously been exposed to gun violence were significantly more likely to report defensive gun use, creating a troubling cycle of violence.

Perhaps most striking was the finding that nearly 60% of all cases where someone reported shooting at a perceived threat occurred among the tiny fraction (2.1%) of respondents who had previously been shot themselves.

“If individuals themselves have experienced gun violence or they more frequently have quick and ready access to their firearms, they may be more prone to perceiving threats and responding through the use of their firearm,” Anestis explained.

The study identified several factors associated with higher likelihood of defensive gun use, including previous exposure to gun violence, frequent carrying of firearms, and storing weapons loaded and unlocked.

Gun owners who carried their weapons more frequently were 30% to 50% more likely to report various forms of defensive gun use, while those who stored at least one firearm loaded and unlocked were 58% more likely to report showing their firearm to a perceived threat and 170% more likely to report firing in the vicinity of a threat.

The researchers were careful to note that the perception of a threat doesn’t necessarily reflect reality. “It is important to note that, just because someone perceives someone else as a threat does not mean they were one and, if someone truly is a threat, that does not always mean a firearm is necessary for defense,” Anestis said. “When defensive gun use occurs, we should not necessarily conclude that the result was a life saved that otherwise would have been lost.”

The demographic patterns in the study revealed interesting disparities. Black gun owners reported significantly higher rates of exposure to gun violence than other groups. Nearly 69% reported hearing gunshots in their neighborhood during their lifetime (with 46.4% hearing them in the past year), and 47.6% reported knowing someone who had been shot (9.5% within the past year).

By extrapolating their findings to the broader U.S. population, the researchers estimated approximately 98 million American adults have household firearm access. Based on their survey results, this would equate to roughly 196,000 instances per year where someone fired at a perceived threat in self-defense – a figure higher than some previous estimates but far lower than the millions sometimes claimed by gun rights advocates.

The study’s authors argue that these findings should prompt a reconsideration of how firearms are discussed in policy debates.

“When we consider policies, we need to more heavily weigh the harms that frequently occur, not the instances of defense that rarely happen,” Anestis noted.

The research highlights a significant disconnect between the perception of defensive gun use as a common occurrence and the reality that such events are rare compared to negative experiences with firearms. This discrepancy may have important implications for how Americans think about gun ownership and the policies that govern it.

While the study acknowledges that defensive gun use does occur, it suggests that its rarity relative to gun violence exposure should lead to a more balanced approach to firearm policies – one that weighs the real-world frequency of defensive use against the much more common experiences of gun violence that many Americans face.