Black Americans hit hardest by gun violence: survey

Black Americans are hit hardest by gun violence in the U.S., according to a new survey that highlights stark racial differences in who is personally impacted by the issue.

A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll, released Tuesday, found that Black adults were roughly twice as likely as white or Hispanic adults to report that they’ve had a family member killed by a gun, including by suicide, at 34 percent — compared to 17 and 18 percent of white and Hispanic adults. 

About a third of Black and Hispanic adults together say they worry “daily” or “almost daily” that a family member could fall victim to gun violence, while just 10 percent of white adults report the same level of worry.

Seventeen percent of Black adults in the survey said they don’t feel “at all” safe in their neighborhoods, compared to 9 percent of Hispanic adults and just 2 percent of white adults.

The figures paint a bleak picture of how gun violence is impacting America. Fifty-four percent of Americans overall say they have or a family member has experienced a gun-related incident.

About one in five U.S. adults said they’ve been threatened with a gun, and roughly the same figure said a family member has been killed by a gun, including by suicide. 

Forty-one percent of U.S. adults said there are guns in their household, and of that number, 75 percent say the guns “are stored in ways that don’t reflect some common ways gun-safety practices,” the report notes — like keeping the weapon loaded or in an unlocked location.

The survey’s release comes a day after a shooter killed at least four people in Louisville, Ky., and a few weeks after three nine-year-olds and three adults were shot dead at a school in Nashville, Tenn.

Gun control proponents and Second Amendment advocates have long been locked in contentious debate, largely along partisan lines, about how the shootings should be addressed.

“It’s unacceptable that Republicans are saying there’s nothing we can do,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said after the Nashville school shooting.

“Our schools, our churches, our places of worship have now become deadly places for many Americans who have lost their lives just this past year.”

A number of Republicans have suggested increasing police presence at schools or even arming teachers in response to recent school shootings.

Taken March 14-23, the KFF survey polled 1,271 U.S. adults in English and Spanish, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full sample. The poll noted that the margin of error for subgroups may be higher.