How Often Do We Use Guns in Self-Defense?

The validity of the NRA's stand depends on how often Americans actually use guns in self-defensePhotograph by Antonio M. Rosario/Getty Images
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“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

If you had to sum up the National Rifle Association’s response to the Newtown (Conn.) school massacre, and to any proposal for tougher gun-control laws, that one sentence from the NRA’s Dec. 21 press conference pretty much does the trick.