More than half US adults experience gun-related incident: Survey

Washington, April 12

More than half of US adults have experienced a gun-related incident, according to a new survey.

The latest survey released on Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a California-based non-profit organisation, showed that 54 per cent of American adults have either personally or had a family member who has been impacted by a gun-related incident, such as witnessing a shooting, being threatened by gun, or being injured or killed by a gun, reports Xinhua news agency.

When asked about their own personal experience, one in five (21 per cent) report that they have been threatened with a gun, while nearly as many (17 per cent) say they have witnessed someone being shot.

When asked about their family members, about three in 10 adults (31 per cent) say they have a family member who has been threatened with a gun, while a similar share (28 per cent) say a family member has witnessed someone being shot.

One in five (20 per cent) adults say a family member has been injured by a gun, and 19 per cent say a family member has been killed by a gun, including death by suicide, according to the survey.

The survey revealed that three in four adults in households with guns say at least one gun in their home is either unlocked, loaded, or kept with ammunition.

The survey found that gun-related injuries and deaths, as well as worries about gun violence, disproportionately affect people of colour in the US.

Three in 10 Black adults (31 per cent) have personally witnessed someone being shot, as have one-fifth of Hispanic adults (22 per cent). One-third of Black adults (34 per cent) have a family member who was killed by a gun, twice the share of white adults who say the same (17 per cent).

In addition, one-third of Black adults (32 per cent) and Hispanic adults (33 per cent) say they worry either "every day" or "almost every day" about themselves or someone they love being a victim of gun violence.

Meanwhile, only one in 10 white adults say the same.

The survey also found that one in five Black adults (20 per cent) and Hispanic adults (18 per cent) feel like gun-related crimes, deaths, and injuries are a "constant threat" to their local community, more than double the share among white adults (8 per cent).

The survey was conducted online from March 14 to 23 and by telephone among a nationally representative sample of nearly 1,300 US adults in English and in Spanish.

The survey was published a day after the bank shooting in Louisville, Kentucky, which left six people dead, including the shooter.

Gun violence is rampant across the US, with shootings occurring frequently.

More than 11,600 people have lost their lives to gun-related incidents so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a website that tracks shootings in the country.