How useful are guns for defense?
“The only reason for guns in civilian hands is sporting purposes.” (Sarah Brady, Tampa Tribune, Oct. 21, 1993) Award-winning criminologist Gary Kleck’s and Marc Gertz’ landmark survey of defensive gun use in the 1990s found that guns were used for defense more than two million times a year. Analyzing national survey data, Kleck also found that “robbery and assault victims who used a gun to resist were less likely to be attacked or to suffer an injury than those who used any other methods of self protection or those who did not resist at all.” (Kleck, Targeting Guns, 1997.) Kleck and Gertz found that in about two-thirds of all self-defense gun uses, the guns used for protection are handguns, many of which are designed to use ammunition magazines that are prohibited by the “assault weapon” law. Shotguns with six-shot magazines, pistol grips and folding stocks were used for home protection guns for decades before being branded as “assault weapons.” Carbine versions of rifles such as the A
