Half of Americans anticipate U.S. civil war soon: survey

NEW YORK, July 20 (Xinhua) -- One in five Americans believes violence motivated by political reasons is, at least sometimes, justified, nearly half expect a civil war, and many say they would trade democracy for a strong leader, Science on Tuesday cited a survey.

"This is not a study that's meant to shock," Rachel Kleinfeld, a political violence expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who was not involved in the research, was quoted as saying. "But it should be shocking."

The survey found in a situation where people think violence is justified to advance an important political objective, and about one in five respondents thinks they will likely be armed with a gun.

About 7 percent of participants, which would correspond to about 18 million U.S. adults, say they would be willing to kill a person in such a situation, according the poll.

Firearm deaths in the United States grew by nearly 43 percent between 2010 and 2020, and gun sales surged during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the report.

Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician and longtime gun violence researcher at the University of California, Davis, wondered what those trends portend for civil unrest, noting that "the fact that basically half the country is expecting a civil war is just chilling."