Defensive Gun Uses Show Extraordinary Crimes Shouldn’t Erase Rights of Ordinary Gun Owners

After a transgender gunman targeted a Minneapolis Catholic school last month, killing two and wounding nearly two dozen others, gun control advocates predictably doubled down on their constant calls to impose every restriction imaginable on peaceable gun owners. As is usually the case, none of their default proposals would have saved a single life.

And, of course, gun control advocates failed to acknowledge how their desired regulations would significantly undermine the ability of ordinary Americans to fight back against the very types of criminal violence from which gun control fails to protect them. That’s in large part because many gun control advocates either don’t know—or simply don’t care—how often Americans rely on the right to keep and bear arms.

Almost every major study—including the most recent report on the subject by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually. In 2021, a professor at the Georgetown McDonough School of Business conducted the most comprehensive study ever on the issue, concluding that roughly 1.6 million defensive gun uses occur in the U.S. every year.

For this reason, The Daily Signal publishes a monthly article highlighting some of the previous month’s many news stories on defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place.

(Read accounts from past months and years here.)

The examples below represent only a small portion of the news stories on defensive gun use during crimes that we found in August. You can explore more using The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun Use Database.

• Aug. 2, Harvey, Ill. Two men opened fire on guests attending a large gathering inside a home, injuring five people (including a 4-year-old boy) before an armed victim put an end to the violence. The armed victim, who police say had a valid concealed carry license, returned fire, killing one gunman and injuring the second. All of the injured guests are expected to survive.
  
• Aug. 2, Jacksonville, Fla. A 25-year-old man used his firearm to defend himself, his mom, and his aunt during a road rage incident, exchanging fire with a driver who brandished a gun at him following a near-accident. The assailant sustained a gunshot wound, fled the scene, and, ironically, crashed his car. Police quickly used the assailant’s license plate to identify and locate him, and he now faces criminal charges for attempted murder. The man who defended himself and his family isn’t being charged.
  
• Aug. 4, Bryan, Tex. In a parking lot outside of a local steel business, a man with a history of serious mental health issues approached a truck occupied by a driver, his wife, and their three young boys, tried to open the doors, and claimed that God told him to take the truck and that “he knew the boys were inside.” Afraid for the safety of his family, the driver engaged the man in a physical altercation during which the man hit him multiple times. Eventually, the driver was able to grab a gun from his truck and fatally shoot his assailant.
  
• Aug. 9, Elkton, Md. A resident awoke in the middle of the night to the sounds of a man he didn’t know pounding on his door and repeatedly threatening to kill him. The startled resident called a “longtime friend and neighbor” for assistance, who in turn instructed his wife to call 911. At the same time, the neighbor armed himself, headed toward the targeted home, confronted the hostile man, and ultimately used the prospect of lethal force as leverage to help de-escalate the situation and detain the man until police arrived. Police arrested the man and charged him with attempted home invasion, attempted burglary, trespassing, and disturbing the peace.
  
• Aug. 15, Philadelphia, Penn. In a random and unprovoked assault, a man on a train viciously attacked another passenger, hitting the victim in the face repeatedly even after he’d fallen to the ground. Fortunately, the victim was a concealed carry permit holder and fatally shot his assailant in what police described as an “attempt[] to save himself from further serious injury.”
  
• Aug. 15, Joliet, Ill. When a pregnant woman heard a man forcing his way into her home late at night while her boyfriend was still at work, she armed herself with a handgun, grabbed her infant daughter, and hid in a bedroom closet. She fatally shot the intruder (who was wearing gloves and holding a screwdriver) after he came into the bedroom. Unbeknownst to the woman, the intruder was on parole for previous burglary convictions and may have targeted the home because the woman’s boyfriend is a well-known custom car creator with a large social media following.
  
• Aug. 20, Milan, Ind. A woman living in a rural area noticed a strange truck in her driveway and called her husband—who was only a mile away—to investigate. The husband quickly returned home, blocked the truck with his own vehicle, confronted an intruder, whom he discovered inside the family’s garage, and held him at gunpoint until police arrived. The suspect was charged with unlawful residential entry and various drug offenses.
  
• Aug. 22, Houston, Tex. An armed homeowner exchanged gunfire with two men who tried to manipulate their way into the house by impersonating police officers. The fake cops—who were clad in bulletproof vests and had badges hanging around their necks—initially claimed they were at the home to serve a warrant. That ploy failed when the homeowner grew suspicious after seeing through his doorbell camera that the “officers” wore ski masks and hadn’t arrived in a marked police car. The intruders then attempted to force their way inside and began shooting through the door, but the homeowner returned fire and fatally struck both of them during the 22-round shootout. Neither the armed victim nor the child inside the home at the time was injured.
  
• Aug. 24, Portsmouth, Virg. A would-be intruder quickly discovered that he’d picked the wrong home to try to break into, coming face-to-face with the homeowner, who happened to be an off-duty special agent for the Virginia State Police. The two had a physical altercation in which the victim sustained “moderate injuries” before he fatally shot the intruder.
  
• Aug. 28, Lauderhill, Fla. – As a father carrying his baby in a car seat exited an elevator in his apartment complex’s parking garage, a man who’d ridden the elevator down with them from a different floor pulled out a gun, shooting the father in the back. The wounded father ran to a nearby vehicle and collapsed, but was able to draw his own gun and return fire at his assailant, who retreated but was subsequently apprehended.
  
• Aug. 28, Harris, Mich. Police say that a man was fatally shot in self-defense during a domestic violence incident. Before the shooting, the man had physically assaulted his domestic partner and then allegedly assaulted another member of the household with a knife.  

Tragedies like the Minnesota shooting are undeniably devastating. But they’re also statistically rare, especially compared to instances of lawful defensive gun use. Our response to unconscionable and extraordinary acts criminal gun violence cannot be to undermine the rights of ordinary Americans (like those described above) to defend themselves effectively against the most ordinary of criminal encounters.  

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