I spend a lot of time correcting bad information about women and firearms, but occasionally, I come across a claim so ridiculous that I must wonder where on earth someone got it. This one certainly qualifies:
99% of women who pull a weapon instead of running away end up having their weapon used on them by their attacker.
— Horatius (@GateCaptain8) September 16, 2026
Really? Ninety-nine percent? Cool story bro’.
As a firearms instructor who has spent years training women to protect themselves, that number immediately set off my BS meter. So naturally, I went looking for the data to back it up. I couldn’t find it. What I found tells a very different story. A study published in the Journal of Criminal Justice, “Self-defense with guns: The consequences”, analyzed federal National Crime Victimization Survey data and looked at what happened when crime victims attempted to defend themselves, including when they used firearms.
If you’re not familiar, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)is the nation’s primary source of information on criminal victimization. It is sponsored by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. And this isn’t just data on crimes that someone reported to the police. The NCVS collects information directly from victims about both reported and unreported crimes. It also collects information about the victim’s sex, whether weapons were involved and whether the victim was injured. In other words, this is exactly the kind of federal crime-victimization data we should be looking at when someone makes a sweeping claim about what happens to women who defend themselves. It’s quickly apparent that the numbers for women tell a very different story.
According to the study’s analysis of the NCVS data, among women who used a firearm defensively, 98.75 percent were not injured. The injury rate was just 1.25 percent. That’s a pretty damn big difference from being told that 99 percent of women who pull a weapon will have it used against them. But there’s another important piece of this. The study doesn’t say the women who were injured had their firearms taken away from them. It doesn’t say an attacker shot them with their own gun. It doesn’t even say their firearms had anything to do with their injuries. It simply records whether an injury occurred.
So, we’re being told that women have a 99 percent chance of having their weapon used against them, while an analysis of actual federal crime-victimization data found 98.75 percent of women who used a firearm defensively weren’t injured. Those aren’t remotely the same thing, and after looking for evidence supporting that 99 percent claim, I can’t find a credible study showing anything even close to it. If you’re going to throw out a statistic claiming virtually every woman who attempts to defend herself with a weapon is going to have that weapon turned against her, you should probably be able to show where that number came from. This myth irritates me for another reason, though.
Women are constantly being told all the reasons we supposedly shouldn’t rely on firearms for protection:
We’re too weak.
We can’t rack the slide.
We’ll panic.
The gun is too complicated.
The attacker will just take it away from us.
Also, now apparently, according to some guy on the internet, we have a 99 percent chance of having our own weapon used against us. Please. Can an attacker take a firearm away from someone? Of course. Can introducing a firearm into a close-quarters physical confrontation create additional risks? Absolutely. Those are legitimate considerations, and they’re exactly why I constantly tell women that buying a gun isn’t enough. You need to train.
You need to know how to safely operate your firearm. You need to understand when you’re legally justified in using deadly force. You need to practice drawing your firearm from however method you choose to carry. You need situational awareness, and you need to understand that allowing a potential attacker to close distance can dramatically change your options; that’s education. Telling women they’re essentially guaranteed to have their own firearm used against them isn’t helpful, or remotely true. While escaping a dangerous situation is preferable when you can safely do it, telling women to “just run away” ignores reality.
What if she’s holding her child?
What if she’s injured?
What if she’s older or physically disabled?
What if she’s trapped inside her own home?
What if the person attacking her is faster and stronger than she is?
Sometimes there isn’t somewhere to run.
Any one of the reasons firearms can be such an effective defensive tool for women is precisely because they can help overcome a disparity in physical strength. That doesn’t mean carrying a firearm guarantees your safety. Nothing does. It means women deserve the opportunity to choose the defensive tools that work for them and then get the training necessary to use those tools effectively. I’ve taught more than a thousand women over the past several years, and one thing I’ve learned is that women don’t need to be scared away from protecting themselves; they need good information and competent training. They also need people to stop repeating garbage statistics that tell them they’re helpless. This applies to pretty much any topic on social media; however, it sadly is the norm in the gun space. If you want to see everyone embrace the Second Amendment, don’t be that person that spouts absolute crap online. How many laughs and likes is a human life worth if someone reads your garbage and decides that exploring firearms isn’t a good option for them?
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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