A majority of adults or their family members in the United States have been affected by a gun-related incident, according to a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Over half of US adults, 54%, have either personally or had a family member who has been impacted by such an incident, such as witnessing a shooting, being threatened by a gun, or been injured or killed by a gun.
Nearly 1 in 5 adults has had a family member killed by a gun, including in homicide and suicide. About as many adults have been personally threatened with a gun, and about 1 in 6 adults has witnessed an injury from a shooting, the survey found.
The new report came less than a day after a shooter killed five people in Louisville, Kentucky. Mass shootings have escalated in recent years, reaching a record pace in 2023. There have been at least 146 incidents so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, leaving more than 200 people dead and hundreds more injured.
About half of all gun-related deaths are suicides, federal data shows. And the suicide rate has also recently increased, reversing years of decline and returning to near-record levels.
The vast majority of adults say they worry at least sometimes that they or someone in their family will become a victim of gun violence, the new KFF survey found. Nearly a quarter of parents of children younger than 18 say they worry about it daily or almost daily.
Guns are now the leading cause of death among children and teens in the US, surpassing car accidents in 2020.
According to the new KFF survey, Black adults are more than twice as likely as White adults to have lost a loved one to gun violence and to have personally witnessed someone being shot.
Read more about the survey.