Firearms in Common Use
NRA - ILA | Published on 1/31/2022
Think of the foremost applications of a firearm. Self-defense and protection have become the primary motivation for Americans’ acquisition of firearms, but the prevalence of defensive gun use remains disputed. New research, conducted in support of a brief for the Supreme Court, offers more evidence that a large number of Americans have used a firearm to defend themselves, their loved ones, or their property.
Professor William English offered this summary of his research in his brief:
“Based on a comprehensive online survey of 16,708 adult firearms owners – an unprecedented sample size in the area of scholarly firearms policy research – amicus English recently and reliably concluded that lawful carriage of firearms for self-defense and defensive gun use are statistically common phenomena. In fact, a majority of the over 80 million adult firearms owners in the United States carry a handgun for self-defense under at least some circumstances.