Below you will find facts regarding gun ownership and use in the United States. This is not opinion, editorial, commentary, interpolation, etc. These are just cold, hard, facts. Citations have been provided for further reading.

Thank you to the great resource sites for compiling this data.

According to a study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, U.S. civilians (not including law-enforcement) use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.[*] Another study by a criminologist at Florida State University puts the estimate closer to 2,500,000 crimes prevented by armed citizens.[†]

A survey of felons in prisons across the U.S. found:[‡]

• 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"
• 40% had decided not to commit a crime because they "knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun"
• 69% personally knew other criminals who had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim

A U.S. Department of Justice study found:[§]

• 74% of felons agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime."
• 57% of felons polled agreed, "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police."

* Paper: "Measuring Civilian Defensive Firearm Use: A Methodological Experiment." By David McDowall and others. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, March 2000. http://www.springerlink.com/content/rngn3274255v6j67/

† Targeting Guns, Dr. Gary Kleck, Criminologist, Florida State University, Aldine, 1997

‡ Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms (Expanded Edition). James D. Wright and Peter D. Rossi. Aldine De Gruyter, 1986 (Expanded edition published in 1994).

§ The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons, U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics Federal Firearms Offenders study, 1997: National Institute of Justice, Research Report, July 1985, Department of Justice

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, In 2007 there were 613 fatal firearm accidents in the United States, constituting 0.5% of 123,706 fatal accidents that year. [*]

* Dataset: "20 Leading Causes of Unintentional Injury Deaths, United States, 2007." U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Accessed September 1, 2010 at http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html

This site is a work in progress, so look for more to come as we continue to add more information to help keep you informed.