In 1992, Florida State criminology professors Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz conducted a survey that showed around 2.5 million defensive gun uses (DGU) a year nationwide. Most DGU involved merely brandishing the gun, not actually firing it. Naturally, the gun grabbers tore into Kleck's results, claiming it could not be true. The CDC did a similar study in 2018 and found similar results. A number of years ago, I had a experience of using a gun to defend myself, but in my case, I didn't even have to brandish it. Once the bad guy made himself known, I took a firing grip on the weapon but did not draw it. It remained concealed. But the bad guy decided I was not an easy target after all.
Today, at Fox News there is an article by Amy Swearer entitle Gun control activists demanded better data. What they got surprised the heck out of them. According to the article:
A Georgetown professor just taught gun control activists an important lesson: When you criticize studies that don’t support anti-gun talking points, be careful what you wish for — you just might get it. In this case, they got an unprecedented amount of new data that obliterates their narrative.
In 2021, Professor William English published the findings of his National Firearms Survey, by far the most comprehensive assessment of gun ownership ever conducted. The data demonstrated that defensive gun uses were commonplace, that ordinary Americans really like the weapons gun control activists hate most and that longstanding stereotypes about the "sort" of Americans who exercise their Second Amendment rights were misplaced.
Gun control activists predictably hated this. They attacked the report’s conclusions and author, blasting the survey over nitpicky concerns. English explained how the alleged problems wouldn’t have significantly impacted the results. Critics categorically dismissed the report anyway.
So, English humored them. He re-administered the survey, "fixing" its alleged "mistakes."
If gun control activists hated the 2021 conclusions, they will likely lose their minds over the new ones, which English just released online. The improved and redesigned 2026 survey fails to vindicate their criticisms and deals even mightier blows to anti-gun narratives.
Gentle readers can read the whole article at the linked site. I don't expect this survey to change any minds among the gun grabbers. They are stuck in the belief that if we only banned the tool, that criminals wouldn't kill others. But the first recorded murder in the Bible was when Cain killed Able with a rock. Indeed, nearly anything can be used as a weapon. It is the criminal intent of the killer rather than the tool he uses that makes the difference. What surveys like the one conducted by English show is that guns are inanimate tools that can be used for both good and evil.
It is, of course, a utilitarian survey, but as such things go, it proves that the principle is correct. God says you shall not murder. But when someone chooses to break that commandment, we have the right, and even the duty to defend ourselves.
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