The horrifying stat that shows the real magnitude of gun violence in the US
A shocking statistic has been revealed with new data that shows just how widespread gun violence is across the United States.
New research from CU Boulder says that around 7% of U.S. adults have been present on the scene of a mass shooting in their lifetime, and more than 2% have been injured during one. It also reveals that children are more likely to have been exposed to a shooting than their parents or grandparents, highlighting the growing nature of the shocking phenomenon in the United States.
Senior author David Pyrooz, a professor at the Institute for Behavioral Science at CU Boulder said that “this study confirms that mass shootings are not isolated tragedies but rather a reality that reaches a substantial portion of the population, with profound physical and psychological consequences. They also highlight the need for interventions and support for the most affected groups.”
The research, published in March 2025, involved a sample of 10,000 adults interviewed in January 2024. Participants were asked whether, at any point in their lives, they had been within the vicinity of a mass shooting — defined by the authors as an incident in which four or more people are shot in a public space — close enough to see gunfire or hear shots.
The motivation of the man who shot Charlie Kirk isn't clear (although he's probably mentally unstable--duh). What is clear is it was another example of American gun violence.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) September 10, 2025
“Our findings lend credence to the idea of a ‘mass shooting generation’”
Nearly 7 % of respondents answered yes. More than 2 % said they had suffered some injury, whether from gunfire, fleeing crowds, or collateral harm.
“We are talking about one out of every 15 people in the United States,” added Pyrooz. “These are really high numbers for this seemingly unique and small subset of gun violence,” said Pyrooz. “Our findings lend credence to the idea of a ‘mass shooting generation’. People who grew up in the aftermath of Columbine have these unique experiences that are really distinguishable from the older population.”
The binary nature of the news cycle in the United States, led by the narcissistic man-child at the head of government, is turning a societal tragedy into a banal discussion of ‘us vs them’. Gun violence is gun violence, not political violence, and mass shootings at schools do not happen because Donald Trump thinks one way and Zohran Mamdani thinks another.
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A simply catastrophic number of people, young and old, are being affected by the devastating ubiquity of military-grade weapons permeating through society across the country, and the solutions feel further away than ever before.
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