Key takeaways on Americans’ views of guns and gun ownership
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.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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.
While the demographic profile of NRA members is similar to that of other gun owners, their political views, the way they use their firearms and their attitudes about gun policy differ significantly from gun owners who are not members of the organization.
Nearly six-in-ten rural Americans have a gun in their household, compared with smaller shares of suburban and urban gun owners.
Federal law enforcement agencies are making more arrests for immigration-related offenses and fewer arrests for other types of offenses – including drug, property and gun crimes – than they were a decade ago.
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?
Republicans and Democrats have vastly different opinions about how well police do their jobs and the realities of policing today.
The public and the police differ on issues ranging from an assault rifle ban to racial progress in the U.S., but their views align on other issues.
A new Pew Research Center nationwide survey of 7,917 police officers focuses on a wide range of topics about policing, including how police view their jobs, officers’ experiences in the field and how these fatal encounters have impacted the way they do their jobs.
Majorities of police officers say that recent high-profile encounters between black citizens and police have made their jobs riskier and left many officers reluctant to fully carry out some of their duties.
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