There's a fairly consistent trend, but a lot of different studies with high variation in their estimate. The Justice Dept. number is one of the lowest studies. It's an incredibly challenging thing to study, since it relies on self-reporting. They already estimate that huge numbers of violent crime victims never report it. What if you avoided a violent crime by being armed? Are you going to bother with the police report?
Last I checked it was 800,000 defensive uses of firearms per year on average. Of course it does vary a lot year to year.
There's a fairly consistent trend, but a lot of different studies with high variation in their estimate. The Justice Dept. number is one of the lowest studies. It's an incredibly challenging thing to study, since it relies on self-reporting. They already estimate that huge numbers of violent crime victims never report it. What if you avoided a violent crime by being armed? Are you going to bother with the police report?