(Photo: Flickr/Mesa Tactical)

Every year, Americans use guns to defend themselves more than 2 million times, according to an unpublished study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that focused on data gathered in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

The findings show that use of guns for self-defense happens more frequently than criminal use of firearms.

During his Monday broadcast, talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said “it’s typical” that the CDC didn’t go public with the eye-opening findings.

“The CDC figures this doesn’t further the leftist agenda,” Limbaugh said, “so it’s been covered up.”

Since the 1990s, Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck and partner Marc Gertz have claimed as many as 2.2 million Americans use firearms to defend themselves every year. While critics have claimed Kleck’s estimates were too high, he has frequently stated that they provide no scientific evidence to counter his findings.

Now it’s revealed that the unpublished CDC study