Forty percent of Americans know someone who was fatally shot or who committed suicide using a gun, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll shows.
In 2013, 11,208 people were the victims of gun homicides, according to the CDC, while another 21,175 used a gun to kill themselves. Those numbers, however, may understate exactly how entrenched gun violence has become in American society -- and how widely its effects are felt.
Twenty-two percent of American adults say they personally know someone who was killed by another person with a gun, with 6 percent saying the victim was someone in their family.
Twenty-nine percent of American adults, meanwhile, know someone who used a gun to commit suicide, including 7 percent who said a family member had committed suicide that way.
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Huffington Post
Both sets of results are pretty much consistent regardless of how old people are, which part of the country they live in, which political party they belong to or how much money they earn.
But they're not consistent when it comes to race. Forty-seven percent of black Americans say they know someone who was fatally shot by another person, and 19 percent have lost a family member. In comparison, just 18 percent of white Americans said they know a victim of gun violence, and just 3 percent have lost someone in their family.
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Despite Americans' intimate familiarity with gun violence, and their tendency to overestimate rises in crimes, respondents generally underestimated the number of annual gun deaths in the country.
Asked how many people are killed by a gun in the U.S. each year, including murders, suicides and unintentional shootings, 48 percent weren't able to hazard a guess. Those who did largely undercounted the problem: the median response was just 5,000 people.
Still, a majority of Americans, 55 percent, say gun violence presents a very serious problem, with 69 percent of those who knew a shooting victim calling it very serious.
The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted Oct. 6-7 among U.S. adults, using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.
The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn moreabout this project andtake partin YouGov's nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be found here. More details on the polls' methodology are available here.
Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGov's reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample, rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click herefor a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.
Also on HuffPost:
Pivotal Moments In The U.S. Gun Control Debate
1981: The Attempted Assassination Of President Ronald Reagan(01 of08)
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On March 30, 1981, President Reagan and three others were shot and wounded in an assassination attempt by John Hinckley, Jr. outside the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. Reagan's press secretary, Jim Brady, was shot in the head. (credit:NBC via Getty Images)
1993: The Brady Handgun Violence Act (02 of08)
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The Brady Handgun Violence Act of 1993, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, mandated that federally licensed dealers complete comprehensive background checks on individuals before selling them a gun. The legislation was named for James Brady, who was shot during an attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
1994: The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act(03 of08)
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The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, instituted a ban on 19 kinds of assault weapons, including Uzis and AK-47s. The crime bill also banned the possession of magazines holding more than ten rounds of ammunition. (An exemption was made for weapons and magazines manufactured prior to the ban.)
2007: The U.S. Court of Appeals For The District Of Columbia Rules In Favor Of Dick Heller(04 of08)
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In 2007 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled to allow Dick Heller, a licensed District police officer, to keep a handgun in his home in Washington, D.C. Following that ruling, the defendants petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
2008: Supreme Court Strikes Down D.C. Handgun Ban As Unconstitutional(05 of08)
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In June of 2008, the United States Supreme Court upheld the verdict of a lower court ruling the D.C. handgun ban unconstitutional in the landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller.
Gabrielle Giffords And Trayvon Martin Shootings(06 of08)
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Gun control advocates had high hopes that reform efforts would have increased momentum in the wake of two tragic events that rocked the nation. In January of 2011, Jared Loughner opened fire at an event held by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), killing six and injuring 13, including the congresswoman. Resulting attempts to push gun control legislation proved fruitless, with neither proposal even succeeding in gaining a single GOP co-sponsor. More than a year after that shooting, Florida teenager Trayvon Martin was gunned down by George Zimmerman in an event that some believed would bring increased scrutiny on the nation's Stand Your Ground laws. While there has been increasing discussion over the nature of those statutes, lawmakers were quick to concede that they had little faith the event would effectively spur gun control legislation, thanks largely to the National Rifle Association's vast lobbying power. Read more here: (credit:Samantha Sais / Reuters)
Colorado Movie Theater Shooting(07 of08)
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In July of 2012, a heavily armed gunman opened fire on theatergoers attending a midnight premiere of the final film of the latest Batman trilogy, killing 12 and wounding scores more. The suspect, James Eagan Holmes, allegedly carried out the act with a number of handguns, as well as an AR-15 assault rifle with a 100-round drum magazine. Some lawmakers used the incident, which took place in a state with some of the laxest gun control laws, to bring forth legislation designed to place increased regulations on access to such weapons, but many observers, citing previous experience, were hesitant to say that they would be able to overcome the power of the National Rifle Association and Washington gun lobby. (credit:Rick Wilking / Reuters)
Sikh Temple Shooting(08 of08)
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On August 5, 2012, white supremacist Wade Michael Page opened fire on a Sikhs gathered at a temple in Oak Creek, Wis., killing six and wounding four more before turning the gun on himself. (credit:Scott Olson via Getty Images)
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