Key facts about Americans and guns
Six-in-ten U.S. adults say gun violence is a very big problem in the country today, up 9 percentage points from spring 2022.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Six-in-ten U.S. adults say gun violence is a very big problem in the country today, up 9 percentage points from spring 2022.
Mothers are more likely than fathers to be extremely or very worried about a school shooting, and concerns also vary by race and ethnicity.
About six-in-ten U.S. adults say there’s too much economic inequality in the country these days, and among that group, most say addressing it requires significant changes to the country’s economic system, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
Attitudes vary considerably by race on issues including crime, policing, the death penalty, parole decisions and voting rights.
More than half of U.S. teens say they are worried about the possibility of a shooting happening at their school, with one-in-four saying they are very worried.
About four-in-ten Americans say they either own a gun themselves or live in a household with guns, and 48% say they grew up in a household with guns.
Americans have broad exposure to guns, whether they personally own one or not. About seven-in-ten say they have fired a gun at some point and 42% currently live in a gun-owning household.
About a quarter of all officers say they have ever fired their service weapon while on the job. Are some more likely than others to have fired their weapon in the line of duty?
Although most Americans think the number of gun crimes has risen, the U.S. gun homicide rate has actually stabilized somewhat in recent years.
National rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s, paralleling a general decline in violent crime, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data. Beneath the long-term trend, though, are big differences by decade: Violence plunged through the 1990s, but has declined less dramatically since 2000.
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