With so much controversy surrounding gun control and with legitimate arguments existing on both side of the debate, it is important to view this important personal right from an objective standpoint as much as it is a personally-fueled one, and the best way to do that is by looking at the numbers.
The US Census Bureau reports that the current US population is a little over 314 million. There are approximately 85 million gun owners here in the US and about 35-40 million of those gun owners possess handguns. Many of those handgun owners study the concealed carry laws for their state and apply for a concealed carry license.
In 2010, surveys showed that about 30-34% of adults in the US owned a gun, and about 17-19% of those owned handguns. A Gallup pole taken from a nationwide sample of 1,012 US adults found that 47% of males and 13% of females owned firearms. With respect to political party, 41% were Republicans, 23% were Democrats, and 27% were Independents. The primary reason given by survey takers for owning a firearm was "protection against crime."
It has been reported that guns are used as many as 1,500,000 times per year in self-defense.
An increase in concealed carry laws has noticeably reduced the crime rates in the states that have enacted them. According to a comprehensive study entitled "More Guns, Less Violent Crime" that reviewed crime statistics in every county in the United States from 1977-1992 and was published by the Wall Street Journal in 1996, states which passed and/or maintain concealed carry laws reduced their murder rates by 8.5%, aggravated assault by 7%, rape by 5% and robbery by 3%, on average.
In 1975, a complete and total ban on gun ownership was enacted in Washington, DC. 25 years after this ban, DC's murder rate was 46.4 per 100,000 residents. In Arilington, VA (located just across the river), however, the rate dropped to just 2.1 per 100,000 people. Even if you look at the entire VA metro area, the rate only increases to 6.1 per 100,000.
Comparing the FBI annual reports on firearm fatalities with the "Annual Survey of Football Injury Research" will show that around twice as many children are killed while playing football at school than are murdered by firearms each year.
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