Survey shows 21 percent of Americans were personally threatened with a gun while 19 percent said a family member was killed by a gun.
More than half of American families have been affected by a gun-related incident while one in five said they have personally been threatened with a gun, according to a recent survey.
"About 54 percent of US adults" said they or a family member have experienced a gun-related incident, according to the survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation released on Tuesday.
The survey showed 21 percent were personally threatened with a gun while 19 percent said a family member was killed by a gun, which includes death by suicide.
Some 17 percent of respondents said they have personally witnessed someone being shot, 4 percent indicated they had used a gun in self-defence, and 4 percent were wounded in a shooting.
The survey also revealed that the share of people who used guns in self-defence increases to 18 percent among adults whose current or past jobs included the use of guns, including military and law enforcement.
Around 55 percent of deaths in the country involving guns are suicides.
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About 1 in 6 adults nationwide say they’ve personally witnessed a shooting.
— KFF (@KFF) April 11, 2023
Black adults are twice as likely as White adults to report witnessing a shooting, with Hispanic adults in between.
Our survey on Americans’ experience with gun violence has more: https://t.co/WcwATfvit0 pic.twitter.com/iTilEGVu5Y
People of colour
While many factors, including but not limited to income, age, education, and location, play a role in gun-related incidents, race and ethnicity is the biggest demographic predictor.
Hence, the survey added that people of colour are more likely to experience gun-related incidents.
Thirty-one percent of Black adults have personally witnessed someone being shot while the figure for Hispanic adults was 22 percent.
About 84 percent of adults said they have taken at least one precaution against possible gun violence affecting their families.
According to the survey, four in 10 adults are living in a household with a gun.
The survey was conducted after the deadly school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, which killed three students and three adults.
More than 11,500 people in the US have died from gun violence as of April 11, the non-profit research group Gun Violence Archive said on Tuesday.
There have been 147 mass shootings in the country in 2023, which have killed 72 children.
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