GUNSHow Often Are AR-Style Rifles Used for Self-Defense?
Supporters of AR-15s, often used in mass shootings and racist attacks, say they’re important for self-defense. Our analysis of Gun Violence Archive data suggests otherwise.
On August 26, an avowed white supremacist opened fire in a Dollar General in a Black neighborhood in Jacksonville, Florida, killing three people. As in many high-profile racist shootings in recent years, including Buffalo, El Paso, and Pittsburgh, the assailant used an assault-style rifle.
Hours after the Jacksonville story broke, the National Rifle Association tweeted that “millions of law-abiding citizens own and use AR-15s to defend themselves and their families.” It’s true that more gun owners are buying AR-style rifles for protection. In March, The Washington Post estimated that 16 million Americans owned an AR-15, and asked 400 of them why. The most common reason given: self-defense.
Other gun owners say AR-style rifles aren’t practical for self-defense, including former Washington, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone, who responded to the January 6 Capitol insurrection. An NRA member and former gun seller, Fanone wrote after the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre that an AR-style rifle is “the last gun that I would recommend” for self-defense.
One reader asked us to get to the bottom of this, writing: “Many gun owners claim to buy assault-style rifles for defense. So how many documented cases are out there where someone actually defended themselves with an assault-style rifle?”
What the Data Says
First, we went to Gun Violence Archive, the only resource that aims to track all individual incidents of gun violence in America. We searched the database for entries tagged with “assault weapon” — which is how the ATF refers to AR-style rifles and is defined by GVA as “AR-15, AK-47, and all variants defined by law enforcement” — and “defensive use,” going back to GVA’s launch in 2014. The search returned 190 incidents.
We eliminated 20 because they featured AR-style rifles and unarmed self-defense, meaning someone other than the victim had or used a gun.
That left us with 170 incidents. Each dot represents one incident.
As we combed through, we eliminated 109 incidents because the firearm used in self-defense was not an AR-style rifle.
In 13 incidents, the person wielding a firearm in self-defense was either a prohibited possessor or a minor. We didn’t include those because neither group could legally own or carry such firearms.
And in five incidents, it was unclear if the AR-style rifle was used or who it belonged to.
That left 51 incidents over a nine-and-a-half-year span in which legal gun owners brandished or used an AR-style rifle to defend life or property. That averages out to around five per year.
