Americans' Experiences With Gun-Related Violence, Injuries, And Deaths
Shannon Schumacher , Ashley Kirzinger , Marley Presiado , Isabelle Valdes , and Mollyann Brodie
Published: Apr 11, 2023
Key Findings
- Experiences with gun-related incidents are common among U.S. adults. One in five (21%) say they have personally been threatened with a gun, a similar share (19%) say a family member was killed by a gun (including death by suicide), and nearly as many (17%) have personally witnessed someone being shot. Smaller shares have personally shot a gun in self-defense (4%) or been injured in a shooting (4%). In total, about half (54%) of all U.S. adults say they or a family member have ever had one of these experiences.
- Gun-related injuries and deaths, as well as worries about gun violence, disproportionately affect people of color in the U.S. Three in ten Black adults (31%) have personally witnessed someone being shot, as have one-fifth of Hispanic adults (22%). One-third of Black adults (34%) have a family member who was killed by a gun, twice the share of White adults who say the same (17%). In addition, one-third of Black adults (32%) and Hispanic adults (33%) say they worry either “every day,” or “almost every day” about themselves or someone they love being a victim of gun violence (compared to one in ten White adults). And one in five Black adults (20%) and Hispanic adults (18%) 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%).
- The majority (84%) of U.S. adults say they have taken at least one precaution to protect themselves or their families from the possibility of gun violence, including nearly six in ten (58%) who have talked to their children or other family members about gun safety, and more than four in ten who have purchased a weapon other than a gun, such as a knife or pepper spray (44%), or attended a gun safety class or practiced shooting a gun (41%). About a third (35%) have avoided large crowds, such as music festivals, or crowded bars and clubs to protect themselves or their families from the possibility of gun violence. Three in ten (29%) have purchased a gun to protect themselves or their family from the possibility of gun violence. Smaller shares, but still at least one in seven, have avoided using public transit (23%), changed or considered changing the school that their child attends (20%), avoided attending religious services, cultural events or celebrations (15%), or moved to a different neighborhood or city (15%).
- One in seven (14%) adults say a doctor or other health care provider has asked if they own a gun or if there are guns in the home, while about one in four (26%) parents of children under 18 say their child’s pediatrician has asked them about guns in the home. Few (5%) adults say a doctor or other health care provider has ever talked to them about gun safety.
- Four in ten (41%) adults report living in a household with a gun. Among this group, more than half say at least one gun in their home is stored in the same location as the ammunition (52%), 44% say a gun is stored in an unlocked location, and more than one-third report a gun is stored loaded (36%). Overall, three in four (75%) adults living in households with guns say any of their guns are stored in one of these ways, representing three in ten overall adults (31%). About four in ten (44%) parents of children under age 18 say there is a gun in their household. Among parents with guns in their home, about one-third say a gun is stored loaded (32%) or stored in an unlocked location (32%). More than half of parents (61%) say any gun in their homes is stored in the same location as ammunition.
Many Say They Or A Family Member Have Experienced Or Witnessed A Shooting, Or Have Been Threatened With A Gun
The latest polling from KFF finds a majority (54%) of U.S. 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. When asked about their own personal experience, one in five report that they have been threatened with a gun (21%), while nearly as many (17%) say they have witnessed someone being shot. Small but important shares report experiencing other gun-related incidents, including 4% who have been injured by a gun, and 4% who have shot a gun in self-defense. The share who have shot a gun in self-defense rises to 18% among adults whose current or past job included the use of guns, such as military or law enforcement work.
When asked about their family members, about three in ten adults (31%) say they have a family member who has been threatened with a gun, while a similar share (28%) say a family member has witnessed someone being shot. One in five (20%) adults say a family member has been injured by a gun, and 19% say a family member has been killed by a gun, including death by suicide. About half of deaths (55%) in the U.S. involving guns are suicides.
People Of Color Are More Likely To Report Experiencing Gun-Related Incidents, More Likely To Worry About And Feel Less Safe From Gun Violence
The latest KFF poll finds experiences with shootings are pervasive but even more commonly reported among people of color. While many factors, such as income, education, age, gender, and where they live can play a role in people’s experiences with gun-related incidents and worries about gun violence, race and ethnicity consistently is one of the strongest demographic predictors of both experiences and worries.1
Black adults (31%) are about twice as likely as White adults (14%) to say they have personally witnessed someone being shot and are also twice as likely to have a family member who has been killed by a gun (34% compared to 17% of White adults). Appendix Table 1 shows each reported incidence asked about by racial and ethnic groups.
BLACK ADULTS ARE MORE LIKELY TO REPORT BEING WORRIED ABOUT BEING VICTIMS OF GUN VIOLENCE, SEE GUN VIOLENCE AS A CONSTANT THREAT
While a majority of adults (82%) say they worry “sometimes” or less often that they or someone they love will be a victim of gun violence, small but important shares say they worry either “every day,” (8%) or “almost every day” (10%) about this. Larger shares of Black and Hispanic adults compared to White adults say they frequently worry about themselves or someone they love being a victim of gun violence. One-third of Black adults (32%) and Hispanic adults (33%) say they worry either “every day,” or “almost every day” about themselves or someone they love being a victim of gun violence, compared to one in ten (10%) White adults.
One-fourth of parents of children under 18 say they worry “every day” (12%) or “almost every day” (13%) about themselves or a loved one being a victim of gun violence. Adults who have personally experienced or had a family member experience a gun-related incident are almost twice as likely to say they worry “every day” than those who have not (11% vs. 6%). In a sign of how pervasive gun violence is, how often someone worries about a loved one being a victim of gun violence does not vary much among all age groups under the age of 65.
Half (51%) of U.S. adults say gun-related crimes, injuries, and deaths, are a “constant threat” in their local community (11%) or a “major concern but not a constant threat” (40%). Majorities of Black adults (62%) and Hispanic adults (62%) say gun-related activities are either a major concern or a constant threat, while less than half (45%) of White adults say the same. Notably, 8% of White adults say gun-related activity is a constant threat, less than half the share of Black adults (20%) or Hispanic adults (18%) who say the same.
Those living in urban areas are more concerned about the threat of gun-related crimes, injuries, and deaths compared to those living in other types of areas. About six in ten (62%) adults living in urban areas say gun activity is a constant threat or a major concern, compared to about half (48%) of those who live in suburban areas and about three in ten (29%) rural adults.
Women are also more likely than men to say gun-related crimes, injuries, and deaths are either a constant threat or major concern in their local communities (58% vs. 43%).
Overall, most adults say they feel either “very” (41%) or “somewhat” (41%) safe from gun violence in their neighborhoods. The groups most likely to say they feel “not too safe” or “not safe at all” from gun violence in their neighborhood are also among the groups most likely to say they worry about someone they love being a victim of gun violence. One in six (17%) Black adults say they feel “not safe at all” from gun violence in their neighborhood, a substantially larger share compared to White adults (2%) and nearly twice as many as compared to Hispanic adults (9%).
Similar shares of people living in urban areas (25%) also say they feel not too safe or not safe at all. About one in five women (22%) say they do not feel safe from gun violence, including 6% who say they feel not safe at all. Larger shares of adults who have experienced gun-related incidents, either personally or had a family member who has, say they feel unsafe from gun violence in their neighborhood than do adults who have not experienced gun-related incidents (23% vs. 13% not too safe or not safe at all).
More Than Eight In Ten Adults Have Taken At Least One Precaution To Protect Themselves Or Their Families From The Possibility Of Gun Violence
Large majorities of adults (84%) say they have taken at least one precaution to protect themselves or their families from the possibility of gun violence. Nearly six in ten (58%) adults say they have talked to their child or other family members about gun safety, including majorities of White adults (62%), Hispanic adults (56%) and Black adults (54%). At least four in ten adults have taken defensive actions, including 44% who say they have purchased a weapon other than a gun, such as a knife, pepper spray, or something else, and 41% who say they have attended a gun safety class or practiced shooting a gun. Nearly half of White adults (47%) say they have taken a gun safety class or practiced shooting a gun, a substantially larger share than Black adults (34%) or Hispanic adults (32%) who say they have done so.
About one in three (35%) adults say they have avoided large crowds, such as music festivals or crowded bars and clubs to help protect themselves or their families from the possibility of gun violence. This figure is driven largely by Black adults, of whom more than half (55%) say they have done this, compared to about four in ten (43%) Hispanic adults and three in ten (29%) White adults.
About three in ten (29%) adults say they have purchased a gun as a precaution against gun violence, including slightly larger shares of White adults (35%) than Black adults (24%) or Hispanic adults (20%). Smaller, but important shares of adults report that they have taken other steps to protect themselves or their families from gun violence, including one in four (23%) who say they have avoided using public transit, one in five (20%) who say they changed or considered changing the school their child attends, and one in seven (15%) who have avoided attending religious services, cultural events, or celebrations, or who have moved to a different neighborhood or city (15%).
Public Awareness And Experiences Talking With Health Care Providers About Gun Safety
FEW ADULTS SAY A HEALTH CARE PROVIDER HAS TALKED TO THEM ABOUT GUN SAFETY
In 2016, the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a policy calling gun violence in the U.S. a “public health crisis” and since then, medical schools have increasingly offered gun-related content to train doctors about how to talk about gun safety with their patients. However, the latest KFF poll finds that more than eight in ten (86%) adults say they have never had a doctor or other health care provider ask if they own a gun or if there are guns in the home. Overall, 5% say a doctor or health care provider has talked with them about gun safety.
About one in four (26%) parents report that their child’s pediatrician has asked about gun ownership and guns in the home, yet, overall, less than one in ten (8%) say the pediatrician talked to them about gun safety.
THREE IN FOUR ADULTS LIVING IN A HOUSEHOLD WITH A GUN SAY IT IS STORED EITHER UNLOCKED, LOADED, OR IN THE SAME LOCATION AS AMMUNITION
About four in ten (41%) adults say they live in a household with a gun. Among this group, slightly more than half (52%) say at least one gun in their home is stored in the same location as ammunition, while about half (47%) say a gun is not stored in the same location as ammunition. More than four in ten (44%) say any gun in their house is stored in an unlocked location, and just over a third (36%) say any of the guns in their household are stored loaded. Collectively, three in four adults (75%) with guns in their household (31% of all adults) say any of the guns in their house are stored in the same location as ammunition, in an unlocked location, or loaded.
About four in ten (44%) parents of children under age 18 report there is a gun in their household. Parents with guns in their homes are less likely than those without children to say they store their guns loaded or unlocked. About one-third of parents who have guns in their home say their guns are stored loaded (32%) or stored in an unlocked location (32%). More than half of parents (61%) say any gun in their homes are stored in the same location as ammunition. Taken as a whole, a majority (78%) of parents in gun-owning households say a gun is stored in any one of these ways.
KNOWLEDGE ON SOME GUN VIOLENCE FACTS IS SOMEWHAT LIMITED
Despite the ubiquitous news of gun violence in this country and that so many people have experienced gun-related incidents, the public is largely unaware of the extent to which guns are responsible for the deaths of young people and the cause of death in many suicides. About half (49%) of the public is aware that guns are the leading cause of death for children and teenagers ages 1-19 in the U.S, which recently became the case in 2020 according to an analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Past KFF analysis of CDC and IMHME data has found that the U.S. is alone among peer countries in the number of deaths of children and teens by guns. In no other peer country are guns a top cause of childhood and teenage mortality. In the survey, Black adults (71%) and Hispanic adults (60%) are more likely than White adults (42%) to be aware that guns are the leading cause of death for those under the age of 20 in the U.S.
Slightly less than half (46%) of adults are aware that more than half of deaths in the U.S. involving guns are suicides. Indeed, in the U.S., about half of deaths (55%) in the U.S. involving guns are suicides according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and about half of suicides (52%) are committed by guns according to the National Institute of Health (NIH).
Appendix
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Apr 2023
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Gun Violence in the United States: Truth and Facts
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbxw/202302/t20230216_11025874.html
February 16, 2023
Contents
Introduction
I. The Surge of Gun Violence in the United States
II. Gun Control: An Uphill Battle in the United States
III. Gun Violence Lays Bare the Decline of U.S. Governance Capacity
Conclusion
Introduction
Gun violence is a chronic disease in the United States. With its interplay with gun culture, individual rights, interest groups and partisan politics, it has long plagued American society and gravely violated people's right to life, leaving an indelible stain on the country's human rights record.
Through facts and figures, this report sheds light on the alarming state of gun violence in the United States and the political and social causes of this entrenched problem.
I.The Surge of Gun Violence in the United States
Gun violence is one of the acutest social problems in the United States, with ramifications not only for the victims and their families, but also for the entire society and country. In addition to the casualties caused and the threat to public security, it has also resulted in enormous economic losses and social trauma for the nation.
◆ The United States is the country with the most civilian-held firearms. With less than 5 percent of the world's population, it accounts for 46 percent of global civilian gun ownership. As estimated by the Small Arms Survey in Switzerland, the global stockpile of civilian-held firearms has increased from 650 million in 2006 to 857 million in 2017, largely attributable to soaring figures in the United States. In 2017, about 393.3 million guns were privately owned in the United States at a time when its population was less than 326.5 million. This amounts to 120.5 firearms for every 100 people. The second-ranked country was war-torn Yemen, with 52.8 guns per 100 people. While the United States ranks first in the world in terms of both individual gun ownership and the number of guns per capita, only about 1.07 million civilian guns are registered, indicating that the vast majority of firearms owned by civilians are left unregistered and uncounted.
◆A latest study by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) reveals that the United States is in the midst of a massive gun-buying boom that shows no signs of abating. From 2000 to 2020, annual production of firearms in the country almost tripled, with a dramatic increase in the past three years in particular. Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about more social problems. The "Black Lives Matter (BLM)" movement sparked a series of looting and riots, aggravating social insecurity. As a result, demand for semi-automatic pistols for self-protection surged and gun sales soared at a record pace. According to the U.S. National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the United States conducted 21 million background checks for gun purchases in 2020, a 60 percent increase from 2019 and a record high, surpassing the previous record in 2016 by 5.3 million. The sudden first-time gun ownership by millions of Americans has inevitably given rise to considerable security threats.
◆Individual ownership of a large number of guns has triggered incessant violence, putting social security in the United States at greater risk. As pointed out by some American scholars, gun-related deaths in the United States in one week may exceed those in the whole Western Europe in one year. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the firearm homicide rate in the United States reached its highest level since 1994. According to a survey by the Giffords Law Center, 32 of the country's 50 largest cities witnessed a prominent increase in firearm homicides in 2021. The Guardian reported in October 2021 that every 16 hours, a woman is fatally shot by her partner in the United States. According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 2018 to 2021, the proliferation of guns not only resulted in a spike in homicides across the country, but also led to more suicides by people with mental illnesses. According to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), gun-related casualties surged to 85,584 in 2021 from 34,231 in 2014. Among the nearly 95,000 homicides between 2015 and 2019, about 74 percent were committed with firearms. In 2020, firearm-related deaths reached 45,222, an average of 124 per day. Firearm injuries are one of the top five causes of death for people aged 1 to 44 in the country.
◆Recent years have witnessed frequent mass shootings in the United States, causing alarmingly high casualties. By American standards, a mass shooting is defined as an incident of gun violence in which four or more people are injured or killed, excluding the suspect or the gunman. According to GVA data, both mass shootings and deaths in the United States have surged about fourfold since 2013. There were 417 mass shootings in the country in 2019, 611 in 2020, and 692 in 2021. In 2022, there were 213 mass shootings reported in 34 states and the capital Washington, D.C. by the end of May, with 242 killed and 912 wounded, a 50 percent increase over the same period in 2017 and a 150 percent increase over the same period in 2013. On July 4, 2022, Independence Day of the United States, a 21-year-old white man fired more than 50 shots from a rooftop at a parade in Highland Park, a suburb north of Chicago, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 30. On Jan. 21 and 23, 2023, tragic shootings occurred in Monterey Park of Los Angeles County, California and Half Moon Bay in northern California, killing 17 and injuring 11.
◆The United States has seen repeated mass school shootings for many years, causing serious trauma to the American society. The mass shooting at the Columbine High School in Colorado in April 1999 killed 13 people and left more than 20 injured. In April 2007, the shooting at Virginia Tech resulted in the death of 32 students and faculty members. GVA data show that, over the past decade, 27 mass school shootings took place in the United States. The deadliest shootings among them are: December 2012, Connecticut, Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, 26 killed including 20 children aged six to seven; October 2015, Roseburg, Oregon, Umpqua Community College shooting, 10 killed; February 2018, Parkland, Florida, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, 17 killed (14 students and 3 faculty members) and 17 injured; May 2018, Houston, Santa Fe High School shooting, 10 killed. In May 2022, an 18-year-old gunman entered the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and killed 21 people including 19 children. This last incident was the 27th school shooting in the United States in 2022. It was also one of the worst in recent years.
◆Gun violence also inflicts huge economic losses. According to Brady, an organization that advocates gun control, gun violence costs the U.S. economy at least 229 billion U.S. dollars each year. In May 2022, in the wake of the shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde County, Texas, over 200 CEOs co-signed a letter urging the U.S. Senate to take immediate actions to address gun violence. In the letter, it was stated that "gun violence costs American taxpayers, employers and communities a staggering 280 billion U.S. dollars per year".
◆Gun violence has also taken a toll on the everyday life of the American people. A poll conducted by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 21 percent of American adults have experienced gun violence in which their relatives, friends or themselves have been threatened with a gun or have fallen victim to a shooting. As many as 54 percent of black and hispanic Americans say that they have had similar experience. The Associated Press reported a survey by the American Psychological Association (APA), which shows that one-third of American adults feel they cannot go anywhere without worrying about being a victim of a mass shooting, and nearly a quarter of them admit that they have changed their behavior due to fear of mass shootings.
II.Gun Control: An Uphill Battle in the United States
Since the end of the 19th century, U.S. state and local governments have made various attempts to introduce legislation on gun control, but such efforts all ended up either long in words but short on action, or flip-flopped. No real progress was made on gun control.
◆The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides for the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. In recent years, as gun-related issues have become increasingly prominent, pro-gun and pro-control advocates have engaged in heated debates on the interpretation of the second amendment. Organizations that support gun rights claim that individual rights should not be arbitrarily modified and gun control is illegal. Organizations that support gun control argue that the second amendment establishes a collective right, rather than an individual right to possess guns, and the government has the right to control guns. Such debates have resulted in stalled efforts on gun control legislation, and Supreme Court rulings based on the second amendment are often not in favor of gun control.
◆In the United States, there is significant disparity in gun control from state to state, and relevant legislation efforts at the federal level are often slow, inconsistent and contradictory. In 1927, an act passed by Congress banned mail shipment of firearms such as pistols and revolvers to individuals, but did not prohibit the delivery of such firearms through private delivery firms. Under this act, individuals are allowed to buy guns across state lines. In 1968, the Gun Control Act passed by Congress did not include registration and licensing requirements for all firearms and their carriers, nor did it ban the import of firearm components. In 1969, the lobbying power of the U.S. National Rifle Association (NRA) propelled Congress to waive requirement for registration of buyers' information by sellers of shotgun and rifle cartridges. In 1986, the Firearms Owners' Protection Act signed by President Ronald Reagan made it easier for unlicensed individuals to sell firearms. It also allowed firearms to be sold at gun shows, and banned the establishment of any comprehensive system of firearm registration.
◆In 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which protects firearm manufacturers from civil liability for crimes committed with their products. Pro-gun groups have also used legislation and federal courts to resist gun control efforts. In June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. With this ruling, the District of Columbia lifted the ban on handguns and allowed individuals to keep guns at home. Justice Antonin Scalia, who presided over the case, noted that the second amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear firearms, and that the District of Columbia's ban on handgun possession in the home violated that right. The Supreme Court's ruling and its opinion on this case have directly affected gun control legislation across the United States. In 2012, in the wake of a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school, Senators Joe Manchin and Patrick Toomey drafted a compromise bill to expand background checks on gun buyers. The bill fell short of the 60 votes required to move forward and was thus defeated. In the ensuing decade, all congressional efforts to pass bills to enhance background checks on gun buyers ended up in failure.
◆In March 2021, the House passed the "Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021", which requires background checks on all gun sales. In May 2022, two mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas sparked hundreds of anti-gun violence demonstrations, and calls for gun control re-surged. The Senate and the House adopted new gun control legislation, only after Democrats significantly weakened the control measures. At the same time, however, the Supreme Court issued a ruling striking down New York State's 1911 law which restricts carrying a concealed firearm in public. This directly undermined the ability of state and local governments to monitor firearms in New York, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey, among others.
◆Due to the difficulty of Congress to act on gun control, the U.S. administration could only regulate certain types of firearms and firearm modifications through presidential executive orders. In June 2022, Congress passed a gun-related bill called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. According to a Pew poll, most people are not optimistic about the bill's effect in reducing gun violence in the United States. Seventy-eight percent think it will do little, of which 36 percent think it will do nothing at all.
◆The American public is deeply divided on gun control. Public opinion polls in recent years have shown that women, urban residents, non-native borns, liberal-leaning people and non-gun owners are more likely to support gun control, while men, rural residents, native-born Americans, political conservatives, hunters and gun owners oppose it. The gap between Americans' stance on gun control is still widening.
III.Gun Violence Lays Bare the Decline of U.S. Governance Capacity
Given a political system where different sides hold each other back, an increasingly polarized political ecosystem, pervasive interest groups and ineradicable racial discrimination, gun control in the United States is in stalemate, and a total ban on guns is effectively a mission impossible.
◆How the U.S. political system is designed and operates constitutes the root cause of ineffective gun control. Gun control intensity varies across different states, making it increasingly difficult to regulate guns and perform interstate enforcement. Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group, compared gun policies across the country, rating every state on the strength of its gun laws and comparing it with its gun violence occurrence. A positive correlation was found between ineffective gun control and gun violence rate. Eight states, including California and Hawaii, with comparatively well-established gun laws saw relatively low gun violence rates, while the 13 states with the weakest gun control, including Texas, Alaska and Missouri, have nearly three times as many gun deaths as the eight states mentioned above.
◆Positions of Democrats and Republicans on gun control are becoming increasingly polarized. In 1968, the House voted 305-118 and the Senate 70-17 to pass the Gun Control Act. Since then, the two parties have been increasingly divergent over gun control. Republicans have always supported gun ownership, while Democrats have unequivocally supported gun control. Given the polarized U.S. political landscape at present, it is even more difficult for either party to compromise. The New York Times reported that since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook, despite a Democratic push for gun control, 14 Republican-controlled states have gone the opposite way, passing laws allowing their citizens to carry guns without any licensing process. The Washington Post reported that in recent years, the Republican Party has posted a myriad of pictures and videos containing guns in newspapers, billboards and social media to appeal to voters who oppose gun control for campaigning purposes.
◆Interest group lobbying is rampant. Group politics and electoral politics in the United States have provided legalized channels for gun groups to conduct money politics and influence the stance of Congress members on guns. According to OpenSecrets statistics, from 1990 to 2022, gun ownership groups contributed 69.3 million U.S. dollars to federal and state candidates, while gun control groups contributed 51.6 million U.S. dollars. From 1998 to 2022, gun ownership groups spent 190.4 million U.S. dollars on lobbying, while gun control groups spent 28.9 million U.S. dollars. In the 117th Congress, 262 members have been sponsored by the NRA, among which 19 have each received more than 1 million U.S. dollars cumulatively. The vast majority of them are Republicans. Meanwhile, the NRA has spent handsomely against pro-gun control lawmakers. All five of the lawmakers whom the association has paid millions of dollars to oppose are Democrats.
◆Gun violence is exacerbated by long-standing social problems in the United States such as social inequality and racial tensions. Research shows that blacks are much more likely to encounter gun murder than whites, and half of all gun murder victims are black. In 2010, 14.6 out of 100,000 blacks were murdered, compared with 1.9 for whites. According to research by the CDC, between 2019 and 2020, gun homicides nationwide rose from 14,392 to 19,350, with the occurrence rate up from 4.6 to 6.1 per 100,000 people, a 34.6 percent increase. Of the 90,498 gun-related deaths in 2020 and 2021, 38,796 were murders, among which nearly 21,000 involved young black males.
Conclusion
The right to life is the biggest human right. The Declaration of Independence begins with the statement that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights. One gunshot after another have shattered the American Dream that all men are endowed with the unalienable rights to life and liberty, and lead people to reflect deeply on where the American-style human rights really are. Some U.S. politicians have long treated the American people's right to life with indifference. Faced with growing gun proliferation, they have done nothing more than empty talks and prolonged debates, while pointing fingers at the human rights conditions of other countries. The most important thing that they are duty-bound to do is face up to and address their own problems, and let the American people enjoy true freedom from the fear of gun violence.
