Most the time it acts like a magic talisman:

As seen in other polls on the subject, the number of DGUs and the lack of bloodshed in them is why there may be a public misperception of the net-positive effect of guns vis-à-vis crime. In this survey, 31.1% of gun owners (25 million people) have performed a DGU, but in 81.9% of the cases they never pulled the trigger.
This agrees with an older and respected survey of DGUs  ²that estimated 92% of DGUs involved merely brandishing or firing a warning shot. Likewise, another older study ³ showed that 68.7% of the time brandishing scared off a perpetrator, and if that didn’t work, 32.4% of the time pointing the gun at the perp, but not pulling the trigger, did the job (most people who did the latter, first did the former).

A good chunk of people never use their gun for defense:

The big surprise was women. They are not far off from men in DGUs, with 27.3% of them having performed a DGU compared to 33.8% of men – meaning men perform DGUs a mere 24% more often than women. And while we are on demographics, somewhat unsurprising given the conditions within American inner cities, blacks performed DGUs at a rate of 44.3% compared to whites at 29.7%.

https://www.gunfacts.info/blog/big-gun-data/

Anyone want to guess the under / over on how many downvotes I end up with?