The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has restored information about defensive gun use to its website, once again displaying research estimates ranging from 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year.
The figures themselves are not new. What is new is their return to the CDC website after the information was removed in 2022, a decision that became part of a heated dispute over how the federal government presents research involving firearms.
The figures now appear on the CDC’s “About Firearm Injury and Death” page under a section specifically titled “Defensive Gun Use.”
“Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked, populations studied, timeframe, and other factors related to study design,” the CDC states.
The agency then cites the report “Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence,” saying it “indicates a range of 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year.”
That is an extraordinarily wide range, and the CDC’s wording makes clear that estimates depend heavily on research methodology. The upper figure does not mean the CDC has determined that exactly 2.5 million defensive gun uses occur every year. Rather, the agency is presenting a range found in the research literature it cites.
The return of those numbers is notable because of what happened four years earlier.
In 2022, the defensive gun use material disappeared from the CDC website. Breitbart News subsequently pointed to a Fox News report alleging that the removal came after gun-control advocates pressured the agency over the statistics.
Now, in 2026, the numbers are publicly displayed by the CDC again.
Their return has already drawn criticism from The Trace, a news outlet focused on gun violence and gun policy. The outlet argued that restoring the material “reflects the Trump administration’s staunch Second Amendment advocacy,” connecting the decision to the administration’s position on gun rights and arguments long advanced by gun-rights organizations.
The Trace also turned to data from the Gun Violence Archive while challenging the significance of defensive gun use estimates.
That introduces another familiar argument in the long-running fight over firearm statistics.
Gun Violence Archive data has frequently been cited in reporting about mass shootings, including reports claiming that the United States has experienced more than 600 mass shootings in a single year. Critics of those reports have argued that the numbers can be misleading without explaining the definition being used, because GVA employs a definition based on the number of people shot rather than restricting the term to the narrower scenarios many readers may associate with a “mass shooting.”
The disagreement over defensive gun use presents a similar problem of definitions and methodology.
The CDC itself acknowledges that directly. Its restored language does not offer a single definitive annual number. Instead, it explicitly warns that estimates change depending on the questions researchers ask, which populations they study, the period being examined and other elements of study design.
But the 2.5 million figure is once again there for anyone visiting the CDC website to see.
