‘The family gun is more likely to kill you or someone you know than to kill in self-defense. ‘ The 1993 study yielding such numbers, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, never actually inquired as to whose gun was used in the killing. Instead, if a household owned a gun and if a person in that household or someone he knew was shot to death while in the home, the gun in the household was blamed. In fact, virtually all the killings in the study were committed with guns brought in by an intruder. No more than 4% of the gun deaths in the study can be attributed to the homeowner’s gun. Also ignored is that 98% of the time when people use a gun defensively, merely brandishing the weapon is sufficient to stop an attack.

Wall Street Journal, November 11, 1998