Firearm Rights and Violence

# Firearm Rights and ViolenceShow more

# Summary

Privately owned firearms are used in roughly 500,000 crimes each year in the US, with approximately 15,000 of those being homicides. The number of deaths caused by improper handling and unintentional discharge are negligible by comparison. The number of firearms owned by Americans is roughly 393 million, resulting in a rate of one homicide per every 26,200 firearms. Firearms are used by American citizens to defend themselves in large numbers every year, with the total number of crimes prevented annually estimated to be between 500,000 and 2.5 million.

# Data

- All Crimes committed with Firearms
- In 2011, a total of 478,400 fatal and nonfatal violent crimes were committed with a firearm.
- Sources - [bjs.ojp.gov](http://bjs.ojp.gov)

[Firearm Violence, 1993-2011 | Bureau of Justice Statistics](https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/firearm-violence-1993-2011)

- Firearm Deaths - Homicides and Suicides
- In 2018, the most recent year for which data are available as of 2021, the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention)'s (CDC) [National Center for Health Statistics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Health_Statistics) reports 38,390 deaths by firearm, of which 24,432 were by [suicide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide). . . about 14,542 homicides in total.
- Sources - [health.ucdavis.edu](http://health.ucdavis.edu) and [www.cdc.gov](http://www.cdc.gov)

[](https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/resources/FirearmInjurySlides_WYCD_June20.pdf)

[](https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_injury_deaths_highlighting_violence_2018-508.pdf)

- Ownership Rates
- The (Small Arms) survey stated that American civilians account for an estimated 393 million (about 46 percent) of the worldwide total of civilian held firearms.
- Sources - [www.smallarmssurvey.org](http://www.smallarmssurvey.org)

[Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/web/20180620231909/http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf)

- The Frequency of Self Defense
- the (****2021 National Firearms Survey)**** survey finds an overall rate of adult firearm ownership of 31.9%, suggesting that in excess of 81.4 million Americans aged 18 and over own firearms. The survey further finds that approximately a third of gun owners (31.1%) have used a firearm to defend themselves or their property, often on more than one occasion, and it estimates that guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 1.67 million incidents per year.
- Sources - papers.ssrn.com

[2021 National Firearms Survey](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3887145)

# Conclusion and Biases

I consider the right to own and carry weapons an inalienable human right, and infringing upon that right is a human rights violation. For those who do not share that belief, there is a strong case to be made that citizen ownership of firearms has a positive effect on the safety and security of the US. You are more than three times as likely to be killed by someone using a car than someone using a firearm in the US (1 in 26,200 vs 1 in 8,056). At worst, firearm crimes break even with firearm defense rates. At best, firearms are used to prevent crime five times more often than they are used to commit crime.