The Return of Defensive Gun Use Data on the CDC Website
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reinstated figures on defensive gun use, indicating there are over 2.5 million instances each year.
This data isn’t exactly new; it had just been removed in 2022. Breitbart News noted that FOX News reported this deletion followed pressures from gun control advocates.
Now, in 2026, these statistics have reappeared on the CDC’s “About Firearm Injury and Death” page.
In the section titled “Defensive Gun Use,” the page states, “Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked, populations studied, timeframe, and other factors related to study design. The report Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence indicates a range of 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year.”
The Trace, a gun control organization, expressed dissatisfaction over the reemergence of these statistics, asserting that the inclusion reflects the Trump administration’s strong support for the Second Amendment. They claim it aligns the president with a gun lobby that promotes the notion that only a “good guy with a gun” can effectively counter a “bad guy with a gun.”
To support its stance, The Trace cites the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), similar to outlets that have reported on 600 or more mass shootings in a year using GVA data.
