By Mirna Alsharif -
NBC News
More than half of adults recently surveyed in the United States said they or a family member had been involved in an incident involving firearms, according to data released Tuesday by KFF, a nonprofit organization formerly known like the Kaiser Family Foundation.
[They publish videos of the agents who responded to the shooting in Louisville, Kentucky]
Those events include
"witnessing a shooting, being threatened with a weapon, or being injured or killed as a result of the use of one,"
the KFF report said.
Revolvers are displayed during a gun fair in Las Vegas, Nevada.AP
About 1 in 5 adults, or 21%, said they had been personally threatened with a weapon;
while 19% stated that a family member was killed by a weapon.
Of those surveyed, 17% indicated that they had witnessed someone being shot.
[Published the terrified 911 calls in the Nashville school shooting: “I hear more shots, please hurry”]
Those numbers come amid a recent wave of gun violence in the United States.
On Monday, a gunman opened fire at the Old National Bank in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, killing five people and injuring nine others, authorities said.
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Last week, six people – most of them minors – were shot when a day off for high school seniors turned violent on a South Carolina beach.
Six people, including three minors, were killed last month at a Nashville school when Audrey Elizabeth Haleen walked into the school and shot.
[Three dead, including a minor, after shooting at a Florida home where police responded for domestic violence]
So far this year there have been 145 mass shootings in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
During the first 24 days of 2023, the country witnessed 39.
The KFF poll found that 4% of adults said they had been injured in a shooting.
Gun violence-related experiences are especially common among people of color, the report stated.
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"While many factors such as income, education, age, gender and where you live can play a role in people's experiences with guns and their concerns about gun violence, race and ethnicity are , often one of the main demographic factors to predict both," the authors of the KFF report noted.
They added: "Larger portions of black and Hispanic adults, compared to white adults, said they frequently worried that they or someone they loved might be a victim of gun violence."
[State of Florida Approves Concealed, Loaded, and Unlicensed Weapons]
According to the KFF survey, about one-third of black and Hispanic adults said they worried daily or nearly every day that they or a loved one might be a victim of gun violence.
By comparison, only 10% of white adults said the same thing.
Flowers and a message of encouragement on the steps of the Old National Bank, in Louisville, Kentucky, where the massacre took place.AP
Black and Hispanic adults are more likely to have seen a shooting
: 31% and 22%, respectively, compared to 14% for white adults.
Black adults are twice as likely to have a family member who has been killed with a gun: 34% compared to 17% among white adults.
A vast majority of respondents, 84%, said they "take at least one precaution to protect themselves or family members from gun violence," including telling family members about gun safety.
[Concern over record number of weapons intercepted at US airport security checkpoints in 2022]
Some 35% of those surveyed said they avoid crowded places, including music festivals, bars and clubs, to protect themselves and their loved ones from the risk of gun violence.
Almost a quarter revealed that they avoid public transport for the same reason.
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Meanwhile, 29% said they had bought a gun to protect themselves from gun violence, while 44% indicated they had bought a weapon other than a gun – a knife or pepper spray – for that purpose.
Around 41% of those surveyed stated that they had a weapon in the house.
Of that group, three-quarters said that at least one gun in the home "was stored in the same place as the bullets, in a place without a lock, or was loaded."