Study Reveals 91% of Gun Owners Have Never Fired in Self-Defense – Here’s the Bigger Picture

A new peer-reviewed study is stirring up an old argument with fresh numbers: most people who have access to firearms have never used one defensively.

But that headline doesn’t tell the whole story—and the “what it means” depends a lot on who you ask.

On one side, the study’s authors – Michael D. Anestis, PhD, Kimberly Burke, PhD, and Sultan Altikriti, PhD – say the data should reset how we talk about risk and policy.

On the other, Michael Schwartz and Alisha Curtin from Gun Owners Radio stress that defensive gun use (DGU) often ends without a shot fired, a nuance they say gets lost in media narratives.

Let’s unpack both perspectives – and the layers in between.

What The Study Actually Found

Anestis and his coauthors surveyed 3,000 U.S. adults with firearm access through a probability-based national panel. Their central finding is simple and stark: 91.7% reported no lifetime history of defensive gun use. Less than 1% reported any DGU in the past year.

When people did report using a gun defensively, the most common behavior wasn’t firing. It was showing a firearm to a perceived threat (about 4.7% lifetime), followed by telling a perceived threat they had a firearm (3.8% lifetime). Firing near a threat (1.1%) or at a threat (1.2%) were rarer still across a lifetime.

The authors also compared DGU to gun violence exposure (GVE) – things like hearing gunshots in the neighborhood, knowing someone who was shot, or losing a person to firearm suicide. 

By that yardstick, exposure was far more common than self-defense. Over half had heard gunshots in their neighborhood at some point; roughly one in three had known someone who died by firearm suicide.

Their bottom line: DGU is rare relative to gun violence exposure, and people who carry more often or store guns loaded and unlocked were more likely to report a past DGU – patterns the authors say may reflect greater exposure to violence or greater opportunity for defensive use. They argue that policy debates centered on DGU can misstate the risk profile of firearm access.

That’s the public-health framing in their own words.

Yes – But Defensive Use Usually Ends Without A Shot

On the radio side, Gun Owners Radio’s Michael Schwartz and Alisha Curtin agree on one key point that sometimes gets lost: most defensive uses don’t involve pulling the trigger. 

Schwartz reads the same numbers and highlights what he calls the essential truth: the presence of a gun (or the defensive display of one) often ends a confrontation before it becomes a shooting.

He points to the study’s finding that “showing a firearm” is the most common DGU behavior. To Schwartz, that corroborates what many gun owners have long claimed from experience: the deterrent effect is real. 

Curtin adds an important legal caveat – defensive display isn’t treated the same way in every state, and in some places “brandishing” can cross legal lines outside the home unless the threat meets the standard for justified self-defense. In other words, the law matters as much as the moment.

This is where their analysis differs from the study’s policy tone. Anestis and colleagues see DGU’s rarity as a reason to de-emphasize it in policy conversations. 

Schwartz and Curtin see the rarity of firing – not the rarity of use – as evidence that guns can prevent violence without shots being fired, which they consider a point for lawful carry and training, not against it.

Both things can be true: DGUs are uncommon events, and they’re more often resolved without a trigger press.

How Big Is “Rare,” Really? The Numbers Debate

A long-running dispute lurks under the hood: How many DGUs happen in a typical year?

Anestis and colleagues extrapolate their past-year rates to estimate that firing at a threat might occur around 195,600 times per year among U.S. adults with household firearm access, and firing near a threat brings the total “shots fired in DGU” estimate to about 489,000 per year. 

They caution those figures are imprecise – rare events are hard to measure, and self-reporting can inflate counts.

Compare that with National Crime Victimization Survey–based work that finds ~61,000–65,000 DGUs per year during crimes reported to the survey. Meanwhile, other surveys, often cited by gun-rights voices, have estimated hundreds of thousands to several million DGUs annually, a range public-health researchers call implausible due to survey artifact problems.

Schwartz acknowledges the variation, but he emphasizes the directional point: regardless of which number you prefer, most defensive incidents don’t end in shots fired, and the mere readiness to defend can deter harm.

My take: the truth almost certainly sits in a narrower middle than the largest estimates and a broader scope than only police-reported or victimization-survey incidents. 

We should be honest about the statistical fog while still designing policy and training for the high-stakes edge cases – the moments where skill, judgment, and safe storage matter most.

Risk, Exposure, And Who Uses A Gun Defensively

A striking nuance in the study shows up in the overlap of violence exposure and DGU. People who had been threatened with a gun were substantially more likely to report ever telling or showing a firearm in self-defense, and far more likely to say they fired at a threat. 

Among respondents who had been shot before, the odds of having fired at a threat were dramatically higher, and that small subgroup accounted for a disproportionate share of the “fired at a threat” incidents.

The authors’ interpretation: exposure begets exposure. Those who live closer to violence (or carry more often and store less securely) may face more situations where a potential DGU could occur. 

That doesn’t answer the causal question – does carrying increase risk, or do people in risky environments carry more? – but it flags the context in which DGUs arise.

Schwartz and Curtin don’t dispute the overlap. Their practical emphasis is different: risk follows reality, so the people most likely to face violence should be empowered to carry lawfully, train rigorously, and store responsibly, because those are the individuals most likely to need a fast, competent defense – and, ideally, to end it without a shot.

I think both assertions can live together: reducing violence exposure is a public-health north star, and competent defensive preparation is a personal-safety lifeline for those who can’t wait for the north star to arrive.

What Policymakers And Owners Should Take From This

Here are the big, non-contradictory lessons that jump out:

1) Most gun owners will never fire in self-defense.

That doesn’t make preparation pointless; it makes preparation focused. If a typical DGU is a verbal warning or defensive display, then de-escalation skills, legal literacy, and safe-carry habits are every bit as vital as marksmanship.

2) Safe storage and carry practices matter.

The study’s associations suggest that unsecured storage and frequent carry correlate with more reported DGUs. That could reflect riskier environments—or riskier habits. Either way, secure storage and disciplined carry mitigate theft, misuse, and accidental harm while preserving the option to defend.

3) Lawful “defensive display” is not universal.

Curtin’s warning is practical: know your state law on brandishing, display, and threat standards. The same action that ends a threat in one jurisdiction could be unlawful in another. Owners need clear training on when a display is justified and how to articulate imminent threat if the police get involved.

4) Public health and self-defense aren’t mutually exclusive.

Anestis and colleagues want policy to de-center DGU as the risk story; Schwartz and Curtin want training and lawful carry to acknowledge how DGUs really end. Both can be right if we reduce violence exposure and teach responsible defense for those who still face it.

The Narrative Fight Is Really About Framing Risk

Anestis, Burke, and Altikriti are blunt: policy narratives that center DGU can misstate risk. They point to the heavier footprint of gun violence exposure in American life and argue for secure storage, less carry, and a shift away from self-defense as the default lens.

Schwartz and Curtin read the same paper and focus on a different signal: deterrence works, shots fired are rare, and training plus lawful carry is the best way to ensure a defensive encounter ends the way most do – with no bloodshed.

Both perspectives illuminate the bigger picture. If you’re a policymaker, resist the urge to legislate based on the loudest anecdote – good or bad. If you’re a gun owner, resist the urge to prepare only for the movie-scene gunfight. Most real-world incidents look nothing like that.

The smartest path is boring and effective: reduce violence exposure where we can, harden safe-storage norms, raise legal literacy and de-escalation skills, and ensure those who carry do so competently and lawfully. That’s not a culture war. That’s common sense.

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