Millions in the US Carry Loaded Guns Daily, Experts Say

More than one in 10 handgun owners in the US carried a loaded weapon daily in 2019, according to a study published in 2022.

Thirty percent of owners carried their loaded handgun at least once a month.

For this study, researchers analyzed data from the 2019 National Firearms Survey, done by research firm Ipsos. It asked almost 2,400 handgun owners in the US about how often and why they had carried their guns in the past month.

The team reported that the number of people carrying a loaded handgun daily had doubled since a similar survey in 2015.

And Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, one of the study's authors, told The Guardian that the 2022 figures would probably be even higher.

The 2019 figures showed that owners who said they had carried their handguns that month had done so for an average of 18 days, while 38% of them had carried their weapon daily.

The US government does not collect data on gun ownership but researchers estimate there were 53 million US gun owners in 2019.

If the figures in the study were taken to be representative of all the people in the US, that would mean that 6 million people were carrying loaded weapons every day.

More than 70% of those who carried a handgun said they did it to protect themselves from other people.

Gun use is a controversial topic in the US, where many people want to protect their right to own weapons.

And the country continues to loosen gun-carrying laws, says Rowhani-Rahbar. He also told The Guardian that this could be having an effect on the increase in gun violence.