The gun lobby will go about as low as 400,000 a year.

Is that low enough?

Yes, there are problems with Kleck's study--but the critiques are themselves guilty of bias in two areas: 1) their a priori assumptions, and 2) their political advocacy. That includes the very latest study from a (dis)reputable University--a source one might hope to be objective if not unbiased. A very real issue is how to generate reliable counts of incidents when many remain officially unreported--except in anecdotal reporting done in surveys.

A more comprehensive critique of the problem with developing reasonable numbers about the number of incidents (of defensive use of firearms by legal carry-ers, or DGUs) can be found in the guncite discussion, here:

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html

But, we have another problem in this OV post--the standard Brady problem of skewing in what they choose to report. Their citations above do NOT include a JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SURVEY ESTIMATED 'DGUS' TO BE ONE-AND-A-HALF MILLION USES ANNUALLY. That was reported on in 1993--just as sick Willy and the antigun crowd was ramping up for the AWB of 1994. IIRC, it was suppressed early on in the Clinton Administration but finally published in 1997.

Maybe readers here should see that cite, too: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf

This Brady Bunch essay, then, is like their other "reports"--hopelessly biased, and worthy only of being called propaganda. Rather than citing numbers that will prove their position, they resort to attacking the NRA's. Given the fact that " gun control " as a political talking point has faded--the Democrat Party sure doesn't want to go anywhere near it--I suppose this essay's tripe is the best they can do.