Myth: Private ownership of guns is not effective in preventing crime
Fact: Every year, people in the United States use guns to defend themselves against criminals an estimated 2,500,000 times – more than 6,500 people a day, or once every 13 seconds. Of these instances, 15.7% of the people using firearms defensively stated that they “almost certainly” saved their lives by doing so.
Fact: Even the government’s estimate, which has a major methodology problem, estimates people defend themselves 235,700 times each year with guns.
Fact: The number of times per year an American uses a firearm to deter a home invasion alone is 498,000.
Fact: In 83.5% (2,087,500) of these successful gun defenses, the attacker either threatened or used force first, proving that guns are very well suited for self-defense.
Fact: The rate of defensive gun use (DGU) is six times that of criminal gun use.
Fact: Of the 2,500,000 times citizens use guns to defend themselves, 92% merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers.
Fact: In most of the remaining 8% of defensive gun uses, a citizen never wounds his or her attacker (they fire warning shots), and in less than one in a thousand instances is the attacker killed.
Fact: In one local review of firearm homicide, more than 12% were civilian legal defensive homicides.
Fact: For every accidental death (802), suicide (16,869) or homicide (11,348) 9 with a firearm (29,019), 13 lives (390,000) are preserved through defensive use.
Fact: When using guns in self-defense, 91.1% of the time, not a single shot is fired.
http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/guns-and-crime-prevention/