Greater than 11 million individuals grew to become gun homeowners for the primary time, with most being girls, Hispanic, or individuals of colour.
Almost 30 million American adults acquired firearms between 2021 and 2024, together with greater than 11 million individuals who grew to become gun homeowners for the primary time, based on nationwide survey estimates revealed in Annals of Inner Medication.
These new homeowners additionally launched weapons into hundreds of thousands of households that beforehand had none, newly exposing about 9 million adults and 6.6 million youngsters to firearms of their properties.
Researchers from Northeastern College and Harvard T.H. Chan College of Public Well being performed a nationwide, probability-based survey in December 2024 of greater than 4,000 firearm homeowners to measure what number of Individuals acquired firearms after 1 January 2021, what number of have been first-time homeowners, and the way many individuals have been newly uncovered to weapons of their households.
They discovered that from 2021 to 2024, about 29.8 million adults purchased weapons, together with 11.2 million new homeowners, equivalent to 4.2% of U.S. adults.
Many of those first-time consumers lived in properties with out firearms on the time, leading to hundreds of thousands of adults and youngsters being newly uncovered to family weapons. Moreover, a disproportionally giant share of latest gun homeowners have been members of subgroups traditionally underrepresented amongst gun homeowners.
Ladies made up 46.3% of latest homeowners and 46.1% of latest gun homeowners have been Hispanic and/or individuals of colour.
Based on the authors, these patterns spotlight the necessity for ongoing monitoring of firearm publicity and counsel that well-established threat of violent demise related to dwelling in a house with weapons has probably risen for hundreds of thousands of Individuals who had beforehand been dwelling in properties with out weapons.
