Pro-gun advocates – from individual gun owners to organizations like the National Rifle Association – frequently claim that guns are used up to 2.5 million times each year in self-defense in the United States.8

According to the 2004 book Private Guns, Public Health by Dr. David Hemenway, Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center:

Much discussion about the protective benefits of guns has focused on the incidence of self-defense gun use. Proponents of such putative benefits often claim that 2.5 million Americans use guns in self-defense against criminal attackers each year. This estimate is not plausible and has been nominated as the most outrageous number mentioned in a policy discussion by an elected official.

But I also think these foamy-mouthed gun nuts who have to have guns everywhere they go, who have these bizarre delusions the government is going to take their guns and who buy and hoard MORE guns every time there is a notable shooting (as opposed to a mundane shooting, I suppose: welcome to America) … they are the ones who buy into the Myth of the Gun hook, line, and sinker. They build their entire lives around this false belief. They threaten others who even try to discuss adding some sort of common sense to the discussion. They consider these facts to be an affront to their “rights” and it is so clear they do not give a fart about your rights.