About 30,000 a year, but the amount of gun deaths every year has been declining since the 1980s. It is estimated that firearms are used 2 to 2.5 million times annually for self-defense. This means that firearms are 80 times more likely to save a life than to take a life. The rate of motored vehicle deaths is still substantially larger at 42,000 deaths a year. Tobacco is still the #1 killer in the United States causing an average of 440,000 deaths a year. http://www.gunowners.org/fs0404.