I haven’t seen anything corroborating those numbers, however even in that case if we include defensive display in our DGU numbers (which the Harvard study entirely discounted on the basis of “we have no real way of knowing those numbers,”) that raises the DGUs as well. Thing is defensive display is by far and wide the most likely defensive use, it is when a person is able to drive off the threat just by showing (drawing, pointing, etc) the firearm on/at the attacker. Harvard is right that there’s no way to get an accurate report on how many because they’re often not reported to the police, as that takes a lot of time and effort that could easily be shrugged off with a “eh I’m fine, didn’t have to fire, fuck it.” An example is this video. Though this clerk did likely report it especially given the accompanying video evidence, many in his position (especially not on the clock or camera) don’t report.

Some estimates of dgu/yr including those defensive displays are as high as 3mil/yr. I think that’s probably a little high, but I’d wager they’re in the ballpark of 500,000 dgu/yr as well.

Though this is the “we need more good people carrying able to defend themselves” part, because although the number is growing still only 25% of people carry, and even most of them don’t do it every day. Can’t defend with what you don’t have. Statista says there’s 1.2 mil violent crimes in 2022, if guns are indeed i .5mil of those, that leaves .7mil where a defender with a gun would have had an outright advantage over the attacker.

In the end what we need to do is address the underlying socioeconomic issues that most often cause the violent crime. Even if we Thanosed all guns away there’s still the matter of .7mil violent crimes and now 100,000-500,000 people can’t even do anything to protect themselves against them. Addressing the causes would have a more measurable impact and wouldn’t deprive anyone of their rights unduly.