Still, a major component of the cold, hard data is, and should be the question of the use of firearms in self-defense or defense of others.
The problem is that those data are harder measure and verify. Really, it's a perfect example of how two or more entirely different numbers can be right, or at least plausible, depending on methodology and definitions.
Statistics regarding murders and suicides by use of a firearm are easier to vet. There's a clear number of people to look at each year. The numbers aren't perfect; but, you're not going to get numbers that are wildly contradictory.
Of course, we do have to set mass shooting statistics aside from numbers that are entirely trustable. In recent years, some organizations have broadened the definition of a mass shooting to make it look like a Sandy Hook is happening more than once a day. That's not true. Under some of these people's definitions of a mass shooting, a gang shootout with a couple of injuries qualifies as a mass shooting, and serves to pad the numbers.
When it comes to self-defense numbers, if I believed that it were true that Americans used guns in self-defense incidents 1.5 to 2 million times a year, that would be a huge win for my side by matter of statistics. That would mean that guns are used forty to fifty times more often in self-defense than in murders and suicides combined.
I do think that those numbers are inflated. Most of the studies that yielded those kinds of numbers relied entirely on self-reporting. Sometimes the wording of the questions are less than clear; but, that happens all the time.
We really don't make it a practice to throw out studies with these issues in methodology. In fact, there has been activism spurred on by studies with similar methodology.
The reality is that there are certain things that do happen to people that they don't report to law enforcement. Defensive uses of firearms, by definitions that I think most people would regard as valid, are among those incidents that happen that often go unreported.
So, it stands to reason that numbers that rely on self-reporting would yield inflated numbers. It should also stand to reason that studies that rely only on cases that are reported, well documented, and have resulted in the legal system determining self-defense will yield deflated numbers.
Just today, The New York Times' podcast The Daily, which is transparently anti-2A, had a guest on who didn't like the broad definitions of self-defense that some of the more pro-2A studies put out. He specifically pointed to incidents in which no shots were fired or nobody was injured.
Well, yeah, even though it's often a better idea to report the incident even if you didn't need to pull your gun, much less fire it, a lot of people don't. There's good reason. If you're in a situation wherein a person is approaching you with a knife and a clear intent to kill you, and that dude runs away the moment you lift your shirt and show your gun, calling the police and reporting the incident as it happened could be interpreted as you confessing to a felony.
It seems to be safe to say that a lot of people who would do harm to an innocent person aren't maniacs with death wishes like Joseph Rosenbaum was. So, for a lot of would-be attackers, the mere sight of a gun on their would-be victims would be enough for them to move on and find another victim.
The New York Times, along with most anti-2A publications, doesn't like to even include educated guesses regarding self-defense incidents involving firearms that don't result in the firearm being discharged or an assailant being injured.
Really, all you need to do to understand that I'm right is lookup the legacy media's scant coverage of Eli Dicken. Even in the case of absolute heroism, they tried to bury it or skew the story to maintain the anti-gun narrative.
Still, even when publications that are anti-gun like The New York Times and The Gun Violence Archive do have their arms twisted and put out estimates regarding defensive uses of firearms they come in around a hundred thousand a year.
The difference between a hundred thousand and two million is clearly enough to show that one extreme or the other is completely off the mark. It also almost assuredly means that the real number is somewhere in the middle.
The most important thing that we should all acknowledge is that, even if we all agreed that the low estimate of a hundred thousand a year is true that still means that guns are used more than twice as often in self-defense than they are in murders and suicides every year. Even taking the per year average of gun murders from the huge spike that we've seen over the last five years, that would put defensive use of firearms at over six and a half times greater than the number of gun murders.
Now, the reality is that we should all be skeptical of any singular study. Anybody who thinks that a number came from a perfectly unbiased source with perfect methodology is naive. To an extent, I do think that number regarding controversial subjects like this often operate like negotiations with offers and counter offers and teams trying to leverage their side by reaching for extremes.
I've come to a position, more or less, that some of these studies by the pro-2A guys live John Lott do more harm than good. 1.5 to 2 million incidents a year seems high to me, and I'm as Pro-2A as they come. It's a nonstarter in trying to cajole people to site this research. I'm not going to deny that a lot of these studies are financed by groups like the NRA. I know that a lot of my opponents will deny that their data comes from equally biased sources of money.
When the numbers being produced by the people on the other side is making my point well enough, I don't see a use in reaching for bigger numbers.
Really, in a nation with over a quarter of a billion adults and more guns than people that's in the middle of a crime boom, the 2 million a year number shouldn't seem to be that farfetched. A hundred thousand is all the more plausible. If we start with that number, the pro-2A side starts on top and it makes it harder for the people on the anti-2A side to start picking away at the number. Rather, the more you pick at the hundred thousand a year number, the more reasonable people have to admit that that's the low end.
Finally, to be clear, I'm not saying that researchers who come up with the numbers in the millions should intentionally project low. If that's the number that they come up with via their definitions and methodologies, they're basically just doing what everybody in that job does. It's really more important for you and me to get better at taking all of these numbers, especially the ones that confirm our biases, with a grain of salt.
What I am saying is that, when your opponent claims to be all about data and outcomes over principles, and their own data show that you're right, it's a gift that we shouldn't turn down.