Nearly half of American adults fear that they or someone in their family will be the victim of a mass shooting, according to a poll from Gallup released Tuesday.
Gallup found that just under half of U.S. adults are “very” or “somewhat” worried that they or a member of their family will be a victim of a mass shooting, an increase from similar polls taken in 2017 and 2015.
- In the August 2019 poll: 19 percent are “very worried,” 29 percent are “somewhat worried,” 27 percent are “not too worried,” and 25 percent are “not worried at all.”
- In the October 2017 poll: 10 percent were “very worried,” 29 percent were “somewhat worried,” 34 percent were “not too worried,” and 26 percent were “not worried at all.”
- In the December 2015 poll: 11 percent were “very worried,” 27 percent were “somewhat worried,” 35 percent were “not too worried,” and 27 percent were “not worried at all.”
Gallup surveyed 2,291 adults in the U.S. between Aug. 15 and Aug. 30, less than two weeks after a pair of mass shootings took place in just 13 hours. The United States has experienced 19 mass shootings in 2019, according to ABC News, averaging one every 13 days. A total of 53 people died in a mass shooting in August alone, with four of eight deadly shootings occurring in Texas, including one at a Walmart in El Paso that killed 22 people, according to The New York Times.
The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.