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A third of Americans said they avoid crowded venues like music festivals and clubs to avoid mass shootings, new study finds

Peter Gelling   

A third of Americans said they avoid crowded venues like music festivals and clubs to avoid mass shootings, new study finds
  • There have been at least 146 mass shootings in the US so far this year.
  • The latest shooting left five people dead at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky on Monday.

More than a third of Americans say they avoid large crowds — like music festivals, bars, and clubs — to protect themselves from mass shootings, a recent poll found.

The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on healthcare research, released the national poll on Tuesday.

The survey's findings come as the United States again reels from a string of deadly mass shootings. On Monday, five people were killed in a shooting at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky. Two weeks earlier a shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee killed six people, including three children.

The US has seen at least 146 mass shootings since the start of the year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks shootings in the United States.

Kaiser's survey shed light on how this level of gun violence has impacted the lives of millions of Americans. In response to another polling question, about 84% of the respondents said they took at least one precaution to avoid gun violence.

"These experiences have led to real worry among American families and also have changed how we act in the world," Ashley Kirzinger, Kaiser's director of survey methodology, told NPR.

The poll also found that more than half of US adults have a family member that has dealt with a gun-related incident, including being threatened with a gun, witnessing a shooting, or having a relative killed with a gun.

About 30% of respondents said they bought a gun to protect themselves, and about 23% said they avoided using public transportation. Additionally, one in five said they changed or considered changing the school their kids attend.

"It's impacting all of our decisions," Kirzinger told NPR.

The poll was conducted online and by phone from March 14-23 on a nationally representative sample of 1,271 adults.



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