DGU’s Return  by Tom Reynolds

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Defensive Gun Use (DGU) “…is generally defined as the use of a firearm to protect and defend oneself, family, other people, and/or property against crime or victimization.” 

Gun control advocates avoid discussing DGU’s like Dracula avoids Holy Water, crosses and stakes

Ammoland wrote: “Defensive gun use data matters because it provides context for the broader debate over firearms policy. When only criminal misuse and suicide statistics are highlighted, the full picture of civilian firearm ownership, including its role in deterring or stopping crime, is obscured.”

Politics should not trump science but, unfortunately as seen in the following and the COVID cover up, it too often does just that.

In 2013, the CDC published the following about DGU*: “Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed. Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.”

SCOPE: Annually, 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms are committed but there are at least 500,000 DGU’s (or more).

The CDC continued: “A different issue is whether defensive uses of guns…are effective in preventing injury to the gun-wielding crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

SCOPE: Crime victims using a gun in defense have “…found consistently lower injury rates…compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

The CDC published this on its web site: “Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked, populations studied, timeframe, and other factors related to study design. The report** indicates a range of 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year.”

SCOPE: The 60,000 figure comes from the survey of the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) which only counts incidents that make it into media reports or police reports.  (But, how many police and media reports did they find?)   

The CDC continued: “Firearm violence and injuries are a serious public health problem that impact the health and safety of Americans. “

SCOPE: This statement is deceiving as it focuses on crimes and ignores DGU’s, which have a positive effect on public health.

The Reload published this in December 2022***…”Despite initially standing behind the description in the defensive gun use section of its “fast facts” website on gun violence, the CDC backtracked after a previously-undisclosed virtual meeting with the” (gun control) “advocates on September 15th, 2021…The half-hour meeting was conducted over Microsoft Teams, but a transcript of the call either wasn’t kept or wasn’t turned over as part of the FOIA request.”

After this meeting, the CDC scrubbed its website of this DGU information.

Now, under President Trump and Secretary Kennedy, the CDC is returning the statistics to its web page.**** The restored language again notes that estimates of defensive gun use vary by study design and cites the range of 60,000 to 2.5 million each year.

In an average year, the United States has about 16,000 non-suicide gun deaths from all sources, legal and illegal.  And murders are overwhelmingly committed by illegal guns and users. 

Without question, lawful possession of a gun by the average citizen is beneficial, not harmful, and the numbers clearly outweigh gun usage by criminals.

* Read "Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence" at NAP.edu

** Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence 

*** https://thereload.com/emails-cdc-removed-defensive-gun-use-stats-after-gun-control-advocates-pressured-officials-in-private-meeting/

**** About Firearm Injury and Death | Firearm Injury and Death Prevention | CDC