Armed Citizens: The Overlooked Line of Defense Against Violent Crime
From the Craig Bushon Show Media Team
The national debate over guns usually plays out in predictable soundbites. Politicians rail about “gun violence,” activists chant slogans, and cable news cycles the same tragedies over and over. But one of the most important realities is rarely discussed: how often ordinary, law-abiding Americans carrying a firearm stop violent crime.
If you listen to Washington, the answer is “almost never.” If you look at the actual data—and at the countless stories ignored by the media—the answer is very different. Armed citizens are not the problem. More often than not, they are the last line of defense between innocent lives and violent predators.
The Hard Numbers That Tell the Story
Let’s start with what the federal government’s own data says. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is conducted every year by the Department of Justice. It’s not run by the NRA or a gun rights group—it’s the government’s survey of crime victims. And it estimates that Americans use firearms to defend themselves tens of thousands of times annually.
Specifically, between 38,000 and 53,000 defensive gun uses per year involve violent crimes such as robbery, assault, or rape. That’s not anecdotal; that’s a consistent trend across decades of survey data.
Now consider this: other surveys, particularly private ones that ask gun owners directly, find much higher numbers. The 2021 National Firearms Survey, one of the largest ever conducted with over 50,000 respondents, found that defensive gun uses may total as many as 1.67 million per year. Of those, about 9.1% occurred in public places—settings where concealed carry is what makes the difference. That means possibly 150,000 incidents each year in which crimes were stopped because someone was armed outside their home.
Even if we split the difference between the government’s conservative low-end and the survey’s high-end estimates, the truth is undeniable: tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands, of violent crimes are stopped by law-abiding citizens with guns every year.
When the Media Chooses Silence
So why don’t you hear these stories? The reason is simple: the media has no incentive to report on successful self-defense. A robbery stopped in a parking lot, a woman scaring off a stalker with her legally carried pistol, or a homeowner sending intruders running rarely make national headlines.
The same outlets that loop school shootings for days on end bury the stories that show the other side of the coin. When a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun, it contradicts the “guns are the problem” narrative.
Even when it comes to the extreme scenario of active shooters, the numbers are suppressed. The FBI tracks these incidents every year and acknowledges that in some cases, armed citizens intervene. But the FBI only credits a handful of such interventions annually. Independent researchers, like the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), have documented far more. According to their work, from 2014 to 2024, armed citizens stopped more than 200 active shooters. That’s not a rounding error—that’s a massive discrepancy.
The truth is, media and government institutions downplay the effectiveness of armed citizens, not because the data doesn’t exist, but because it runs counter to the political narrative.
Real-Life Cases of Concealed Carriers Stopping Violence
Statistics are important, but stories often say more. Consider a few cases that show the real-world impact of lawful carry:
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Greenwood, Indiana, July 2022: A 22-year-old man named Elisjsha Dicken was legally carrying a handgun under Indiana’s constitutional carry law. When a killer opened fire in a shopping mall, Dicken drew his weapon and stopped the shooter within seconds, saving countless lives. Police praised him as a hero.
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Sutherland Springs, Texas, 2017: After a gunman murdered 26 people in a church, an armed neighbor, Stephen Willeford, heard the shots, grabbed his AR-15, and confronted the killer. Willeford’s intervention forced the gunman to flee, ending the massacre.
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Charleston, West Virginia, May 2022: A man opened fire into a graduation party crowd with an AR-15-style rifle. A woman lawfully carrying concealed drew her pistol and shot the attacker before anyone was killed.
These aren’t hypotheticals. These are ordinary Americans—young, old, male, female—who happened to be carrying lawfully when evil struck. And they changed the outcome.
Law-Abiding Citizens by the Numbers
Critics like to paint concealed carriers as vigilantes itching for a fight. But the data shows the opposite. Across state after state, concealed-carry permit holders are among the most law-abiding groups in America.
Take Texas, a state with millions of licensed carriers. In 2022, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety, permit holders accounted for about 0.5% of all criminal convictions. That’s not a typo. In a state of 30 million people, licensed carriers are dramatically less likely to commit crimes than the general population.
Florida, which has issued more than 2.5 million permits, reports similarly low rates of criminal misuse. Over decades, the rate of permits revoked for gun crimes is fractions of a percent.
This makes sense. Getting a permit, even in states with relatively simple processes, requires passing background checks and, often, training. These aren’t criminals—they’re citizens who value their rights and responsibilities.
The History of Concealed Carry
The right to bear arms isn’t new, but the modern concealed-carry movement has grown dramatically in the last 40 years. In the 1980s, only a handful of states issued permits broadly. Most were “may-issue,” meaning bureaucrats could deny permits arbitrarily. Today, the vast majority of states are “shall-issue,” where permits must be granted if basic requirements are met.
And since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, even restrictive states can no longer demand “special cause” to exercise the right to carry. This ruling recognized what the Founders always knew: the right to bear arms doesn’t end at your front door.
The expansion of concealed carry coincides with falling violent crime rates nationwide. That’s not proof of cause and effect, but it certainly undermines the idea that more lawful carry leads to chaos. If millions of new carriers were truly a public safety hazard, the evidence would show it. It doesn’t.
Liberty at Stake
At its core, this debate isn’t about numbers—it’s about liberty. The Second Amendment was written not for sport shooting, but as a safeguard of freedom. A people that cannot defend themselves are not truly free.
Every time a woman walking to her car deters an attacker with her firearm, every time a father protects his family during a home invasion, every time an armed citizen halts a mass shooter before police arrive, it is a living example of liberty in action.
The Founders understood this. They had just fought a revolution against a government that tried to disarm them. To them, an armed citizenry was not a danger—it was the ultimate check on both criminal thugs and tyrannical rulers.
Why Politicians Ignore the Evidence
So why do so many politicians ignore or distort these facts? Because empowering citizens goes against the grain of big government. If you admit that Americans can and do defend themselves successfully, the entire argument for stricter gun control collapses.
That’s why you’ll see endless focus on criminal misuse of guns—but almost no acknowledgment of lawful defensive use. It’s not that the stories don’t exist; it’s that they don’t serve the agenda.
Here’s The Bottom Line
We don’t need speculation—we have evidence. The federal government’s own survey shows tens of thousands of violent crimes stopped by armed citizens every year. Independent surveys suggest the number may be in the hundreds of thousands. Real-world cases prove it happens in shopping malls, churches, homes, and streets across America.
Concealed carriers are not a fringe minority—they’re millions strong. They are overwhelmingly law-abiding. And they are often the only line of defense when seconds matter and police are minutes away.
Concealed carry isn’t about paranoia—it’s about responsibility. It’s about making sure that when evil strikes, ordinary citizens aren’t left defenseless. It’s about justice, liberty, and the enduring truth that freedom belongs to the people, not the politicians.
That’s the story the establishment doesn’t want you to hear. But it’s one we will keep telling. Because in a Republic built on liberty, it is not only relevant—it is essential.
Disclaimer:
This commentary reflects the opinion of the Craig Bushon Show Media Team. It is not intended as legal advice, statistical certainty, or a call to action. Firearm laws vary by state, and readers should always comply with federal, state, and local regulations. All statistics referenced are based on publicly available surveys, reports, and documented incidents. Estimates vary widely depending on methodology.
