New Survey Estimates 180,000 Defensive Gun Uses Against Animals Each Year

Gun owners do not carry firearms only because violent criminals exist. Bears, mountain lions, feral dogs, rabid animals and other four-legged threats do not care about gun-control politics—and they do not wait for police or animal-control officers to arrive.A newly published national firearms survey from Georgetown University professor William English estimates that Americans use firearms defensively against animal threats roughly 180,000 times every year.English’s new 2026 National Firearms Survey is a detailed, 75-page follow-up to his widely cited 2021 work. The survey began with 51,398 American adults and identified 16,688 respondents as gun owners through a two-stage validation process.The paper...