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Posted on 09/07/2026 4:58:00 AM PDT by marktwain
Gun owners do not carry firearms only because violent criminals exist. Bears, mountain lions, feral dogs, rabid animals and other four-legged threats do not care about gun-control politics—and they do not wait for police or animal-control officers to arrive.
A newly published national firearms survey from Georgetown University professor William English estimates that Americans use firearms defensively against animal threats roughly 180,000 times every year.
English’s new 2026 National Firearms Survey is a detailed, 75-page follow-up to his widely cited 2021 work. The survey began with 51,398 American adults and identified 16,688 respondents as gun owners through a two-stage validation process.
The paper estimates approximately 2.2 million defensive firearm incidents annually. According to English, 8.4% of those incidents involved animal threats rather than criminal threats. Depending on which rounded annual estimate in the paper is used, that works out to approximately 176,000 to 185,000 incidents, or roughly 180,000 defensive gun uses against animals each year. That is not an insignificant category of armed self-defense.
Several examples of verbatim responses regarding defensive firearm use directed at animals are included in Appendix H. These were specifically taken from responses where the respondents were asked:
“Have you ever been in a situation (including any referenced in earlier responses) in which it would have been useful for defensive purposes to have a firearm with a magazine capacity in excess of 10 rounds? If so, please briefly describe that situation.”
There were 2,386 individuals who answered positively. Most of those are reported as giving a description of the situation. The paper quotes 33 responses to illustrate what was reported to them. Of the 33 responses, 7 involved defenses against animals, somewhat higher than the number reported in the overall survey. Here are three from the paper:
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
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Humans are animals too.
I’ve been attacked twice while out for a walk.
The next one gets a bullet in its head.
And that doesn’t even count all of the “shoot, shovel, shut up” people!
number does not include rattlesnakes
I was walking down the road on vacation in Maine and a German Shepherd tried to bite me.
If the owner didn’t have it on a leash it would have definitely bit me.
I told him I would have that dog put to sleep.
It was the middle of the day.
I made no aggressive movement or even eye contact with the dog. He just came at me.
As another part of the article. I shot a skunk in my back yard a couple summers ago.
It was about 11 at night.
The skunk had gone into our fenced in dog yard and the beagles were going nuts.
Then it came out into the yard and was coming towards me.
The model 12 shotgun blew him back about six feet.
I picked him up with a shovel. Then poured bleach on the shovel and let it sit out in the sun for a few days.
It probably had rabies.
Around here, it is copperheads and water moccasins. The buzzards are currently feasting on a feral hog that was shot from the porch. One of many.
.
eee yuck....water moccasin is one ugly snake
Yep...I think the number of dangerous animals shot is low.
Low by at least 1000x
Then there is the cop who shot a baby donkey in a petting zoo recently because he was in fear for his safety.
About 1900, when bicycles were becoming popular, “bicycle” guns were common. They were meant to shoot dogs which attacked bicyclists.
Nobody objected.
There are two occasions I had to put down rabid skunks. The first time it happened the skunk was actually trying to attack me.
I wonder how much money is involved in the gun argument. As long as there is an argument about the right, lots of money is made.
Once it becomes clear the right to own a gun is inalienable and no longer arguable, the money dries up.
Follow the money!!
mountain lions, feral dogs and Bears, oh my......
No longer have pigeons around...
The Velo dog revolver.
https://www.historicalfirearms.info/post/90600504584/velo-dog-revolvers-developed-in-the-late-19th
Bingo. And many of those shootings are more than one snake at a time.
From here: South Park - It's Coming Right For Us
Good link. Thank you.
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