>For instance, because of those differences in the definition of “defensive gun use” some researchers will tell you that Americans use a gun to defend themselve

>For instance, because of those differences in the definition of “defensive gun use” some researchers will tell you that Americans use a gun to defend themselves something like 1.5 million times every year. Others say it happens maybe 200,000 times annually. That kind of variability does not create an environment where it is easy to craft evidence-based policy fuck you, yes it clearly does, it just isn't the answer you want. Author has clearly written the bottom line first in this article. 20k deaths occur annually from gun violence discounting suicides. The lowest estimate for defensive uses of guns (which came from a study which only counted actual police reports) was the aforementioned 200k. This is an order of magnitude difference. Criminals in our country are going to have guns for a long time and no law is going to change that.