Most young Americans deem gun violence national problem: Scheer Post

NEW YORK, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Some 74 percent of young Americans deem gun violence a problem in the United States, and 59 percent support stricter gun safety laws, reported a U.S. independent daily news portal on Sunday, citing a new study.

More than a quarter of young Americans (aged 14-30) have experienced a lockdown because of an active shooting incident, while the average young American knows "at least one person who has been injured or killed by a gun," said Scheer Post, noting that mass shootings in the country have amounted to 430 so far this year.

"Of course, the stress I feel over the epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. probably pales in comparison to that felt by many younger Americans, for whom school shootings have occurred far more regularly than they did in the 1980s and '90s when I was in school," said the report.

Although mass shootings make up only 1 percent of America's annual gun violence, "they have an outsize impact on young people's lives, due in part to the amount of media coverage they receive, the number of times specific communities are targeted and the prevalence of both lockdown drills and actual lockdowns," it said.