FACT BRIEF

Has nearly one in five Americans lost a family member to gun violence?

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

By Tom Kertscher

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YES

A nationally representative poll of U.S. adults in March 2023 asked:

“Do you have a family member who has ever been killed by a gun, including death by suicide?”

The results: 19% said yes, 73% said no and 8% said don’t know.

The poll by KFF, formerly Kaiser Family Foundation, was done online and by phone in English and Spanish. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

In 2022, 56% of the 48,187 U.S. gun deaths were suicide, according to provisional data as of Aug. 14, 2023, from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Homicide accounted for 41% of gun deaths in 2022.

More than twice as many suicides by firearm in 2020 occurred in states with the fewest gun laws, relative to states with the most laws, KFF reported in 2022.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

KFF Health Tracking Poll

Google Docs 2022 US firearm deaths total, by type

KFF Do States with Easier Access to Guns have More Suicide Deaths by Firearm?

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Wisconsin Watch

Wisconsin Watch, the news arm of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, increases the quality and quantity of investigative reporting in Wisconsin, while training current and future investigative journalists. Its work fosters an informed citizenry and strengthens democracy.