News/Commentary

Sketchy study claiming that 1 in 5 have lost family to gun violence doesn’t pass the smell test

April 12, 2023 | | Print Article

If the Covid-19 pandemic has taught America anything, it’s that statistics cannot be trusted in an age where the ends justify the means and while we still grapple with understanding the true number who died as a direct result of the Beijing flu, a new statistic involving gun deaths is being thrown about.

With Democrats pushing as hard as they ever have on gun control, a new stat will be thrown about ad nauseam courtesy of the Kaiser Family Foundation. A new study from the San Francisco-based non-profit claims that 1 in 5 U.S adults have lost a family member to gun violence and a similar number say they have personally been threatened by a gun at some point in their lives. But the results don’t appear to pass the smell test.

There is also a racial component to the study, with results showing that people of color were disproportionately impacted by gun violence: Three in ten black respondents and one in five Hispanic respondents said they’ve witnessed someone being shot. Thirty-four percent of black adults reported having a family member who was killed by a firearm, which is twice the rate for white adults.

KFF also claims that a majority (54%) of U.S. adults “have either personally or had a family member who has been impacted by a gun-related incident, such as witnessing a shooting, being threatened by gun, or being injured or killed by a gun.”

The study showed that four in ten (41%) adults report living in a household with a gun and the non-profit repeats another controversial claim that “guns are the leading cause of death for children and teenagers ages 1-19 in the U.S.”

Overall, the study has a math problem, as noted by a Twitter account under the name Claude Krause: “LMAO, mathematics is hard y’all. 331,002,651 people in the US, 77.9% or 258.3 million are ‘adults’. That’s 51,660,000 people who ‘supposedly’ have had a family member killed by a gun. See the problem here.”

Another social media user raised a great question about whether the study includes family members killed in the line of military service:

Here’s a quick sampling of other responses from Twitter questioning the results:

Tom Tillison
Latest posts by Tom Tillison (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles