One in 15 American adults have been on the scene of a mass shooting, according to a recent study by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, says just under 7% of U.S. adults have been physically present for a mass shooting, which it defines as four or more people being shot in a public space. The researchers defined “physically present” as “in the immediate vicinity of where the shooting occurred at the time it occurred, such that bullets were fired in your direction, you could see the shooter, or you could hear the gunfire.”
Just over 2% of respondents said they had been injured in a mass shooting, and more than half who had been present during a mass shooting said it happened in the last decade, the study says. It also found that younger generations were significantly more likely to have been present at such events than their parents or grandparents were, the study’s authors calling people who grew up after Columbine a ‘mass shooting generation.’
