The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reposted highly disputed defensive gun use numbers last month, The Trace has found.
The CDC’s web page on firearm injury and death prevention has now been edited to say Americans use guns to defend themselves an estimated 60,000 to 2.5 million times each year. Numbers on the actual such uses of guns have been hotly debated for years, with the low number preferred by gun violence prevention advocates, and the higher number cited by the National Rifle Association and other gun-lobby groups. Experts agree the true number is difficult to determine.
The Trump CDC originally published the “60,000 to 2.5 million” number during his first administration, but removed it in 2022 after lobbying by a group of researchers that included Mark Bryant, who leads Gun Violence Archive, and Devin Hughes, who runs GVPedia, a nonprofit gun violence research outfit.
Hughes told The Trace that the agency’s repost of the disputed numbers is “disappointing but unsurprising,” calling it “the politically motivated laundering of disinformation that has become a hallmark of the Trump administration’s approach to all scientific inquiry, and gun violence is no exception.”