The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has restored information on defensive gun use that it removed from its website in 2022 after gun-control advocates privately pressured agency officials to take it down. For years, until May 2022, the CDC cited a 2013 National Academies of Sciences report reviewing studies that produced estimates ranging from roughly 64,000 to 3.5 million defensive gun uses annually, while the CDC itself cited an upper estimate of 2.5 million. The agency subsequently removed both the estimates and the link to the National Academies report, but it has now restored the discussion of defensive gun use and the link to the report.

The restoration adds another victory for supporters of armed self-defense during the Trump administration. The administration has challenged restrictive concealed-carry laws, ended the Biden administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that threatened gun dealers’ licenses over relatively minor paperwork violations, appointed judges viewed favorably by gun-rights advocates, and pursued other changes.

Soon after Biden became president, introductions facilitated by the White House and Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin’s office helped gun-control advocates connect with senior CDC officials. The advocates subsequently held a private meeting with CDC officials and exchanged numerous emails as they pressed the agency to remove the defensive gun-use estimates.

“[T]hat 2.5 million number needs to be killed, buried, dug up, killed again and buried again,” Mark Bryant, who runs the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), wrote to CDC officials in September 2021 after meeting with them. Bryant complained that because of the 2.5 million estimate, “gun violence policy has ground to a halt.” But government officials should not censor research or data simply because advocates believe the........

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