Guns are used for self-defense about 400,000 times per year, according to one scholar. That number is a compromise; other scholars put the number as high as between 800,000 and 2.5 million.
The one thing for certain is that defensive gun use occurs hundreds of thousands of times every year.
If you question the usefulness of guns for self-defense, watch the video below produced by the City of Houston with a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security titled “Run, Hide, Fight.” It’ll make your trigger finger itch.
Maureen Martin is The Heartland Institute's senior fellow for legal affairs. Formerly a newspaper reporter, she became an attorney and has practiced law for nearly 30 years, generally concentrating in litigation and environmental law. She was an adjunct professor of environmental law at Loyola University Chicago for more than 10 years. Her op-eds have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, the Washington Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Chicago Tribune, among others. Her favorite lawyer joke: “What’s the difference between a carp and a lawyer?” Answer: “One’s a scum-sucking bottom feeder; the other’s just a fish.”
Guns are used for self-defense about 400,000 times per year, according to one scholar. That number is a compromise; other scholars put the number as high as between 800,000 and 2.5 million.
