For a guaranteed blank stare, ask gun-control proponents how often Americans use guns to defend themselves. They can't tell you, because they don't ask.

Suppose a guy goes to a baseball game. "Honey," his wife asks afterward, "who won the game?" The husband says, "The Dodgers scored four runs." What's missing? Obviously, the wife still knows nothing about the outcome because she knows only one-half of the equation. Well, how can one responsibly discuss "how many people die because of guns" without discussing the other half of the equation -- how many people would not be alive without their defensive use of a gun?

So, how often do Americans use firearms for self-defense?

Criminologist Gary Kleck estimates that 2.5 million Americans use guns to defend themselves each year. Out of that number, 400,000 believe that but for their firearms, they would have been dead.

Professor Emeritus James Q. Wilson, the UCLA public policy expert, says: "We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond 100,000 uses of guns for self-defense occur every year. We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as 2 1/2 or 3 million. We don't know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it's not a trivial number."


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