The 1996 study Guns in America found that only 6.6 percent of adult American women owned a handgun—less than one out of every 10 women. But of these women, nearly 85 percent owned their handguns for self-defense—a figure that offers gunmakers continual hope in their marketing endeavors.3 Yet how often are handguns actually used by women to kill in self-defense? The answer, as revealed by unpublished Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data, is hardly ever. Women were murdered with handguns more than 1,200 times in 1998 alone. As these numbers reveal, handguns don't offer protection for women, but instead guarantee peril.4
For all of the promises made on behalf of the self-defense handgun, using a handgun to kill in self-defense is a rare event.5 Looking at both men and women, over the past 20 years, on average only two percent of the homicides committed with handguns in the United States were deemed justifiable or self-defense homicides by civilians.6 To put it in perspective, more people are struck by lightning each year than use handguns to kill in self-defense.