This is something people in the gun community have known intuitively since forever. That there are literally thousands of justifiable defensive uses of firearms across the fruited plain EVERY DAY, but most go unreported because gun owners fear getting jammed up by the legal system for exercising their natural right to self defense.

CDC, in Surveys It Never Bothered Making Public, Provides More Evidence that Plenty of Americans Innocently Defend Themselves with Guns

CDC surveys in the 1990s, never publicly reported, indicate nearly 2.5 million defensive uses of guns a year. That matches the results of Gary Kleck's controversial surveys, and it indicates more defensive than offensive uses of guns.

...Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck conducted the most thorough previously known survey data on the question in the 1990s. His study, which has been harshly disputed in pro-gun-control quarters, indicated that there were more than 2.2 million such defensive uses of guns (DGUs) in America a year.

Now Kleck has unearthed some lost CDC survey data on the question. The CDC essentially confirmed Kleck's results. But Kleck didn't know about that until now, because the CDC never reported what it found...

...Kleck was impressed with how well the survey worded its question: "During the last 12 months, have you confronted another person with a firearm, even if you did not fire it, to protect yourself, your property, or someone else?" Respondents were told to leave out incidents from occupations, like policing, where using firearms is part of the job....


The online article is here:

reason.com/blog/2018/04/20/cdc-provides-more-evidence-that-plenty-o

Kleck was mocked when he released his study for its "inflated" numbers, when according to the CDC, he had underestimated the numbers of actual defensive gun uses by more than 500 a day. Considering the CDC is a public service, and considering how intent certain elements of the government are so hell-bent of rendering America's citizens defenseless, it's blatantly obvious that this amounts to a lie by omission. Gee, the government is lying. Whooda thunkit?

And of course this puts the lie to one of the biggest myths of the anti-gunners: that a gun is more likely to kill its owner than to be used to protect him.