One in five American adults has a relative killed by gunfire, report says

A disturbing new report has laid bare America’s obsession with guns, after two mass shootings leave the rest of the world shaking their heads.

Nearly one in five adults in the United States say they have a relative who was killed by a gun, a disturbing new study has revealed.

The troubling statistic included death by suicide, according to the report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, the New York Post reports.

A similar amount — 21 per cent — of respondents said they had been personally threatened with a gun.

Shooter Audrey Hale shot and killed three students and three adults at the Covenant School, Nashville, on March 27. Picture: Metropolitan Nashville Police Department / AFP

Police at the scene of the shooting at the Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky, on April 10. Picture: Michael Swensen / Getty Images / AFP

The study also found that people of colour were disproportionately impacted by gun violence, with three in 10 black adults and one-fifth of Hispanic respondents saying they have witnessed someone being shot.

Thirty-four per cent of black adults reported having a family member who was killed by a firearm, or two times the share of white adults who said the same.

Black and Hispanic adults were also a little more than three times as likely to say they worried daily or almost daily about family members becoming victims of gun violence.

Protesters call for gun reform laws at the Tennessee State Capitol building on April 6. Picture: Seth Herald/Getty Images/AFP

Despite these concerns, the study found that 41 per cent of participants said they lived in a household with guns. Of these respondents, 75 per cent said their firearms were stored either unlocked, loaded, or alongside ammunition.

The Kaiser Family Foundation study comes amid a spate of mass shootings in the US.

On Monday, five people were killed when a former employee opened fire at Old National Bank in Louisville. Two weeks earlier, six people — including three children — were murdered by a former student at Nashville’s Covenant School.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as One in five American adults has a relative killed by gunfire, report says