If you’re ever been morbidly curious about how many of us would ever give into our darkest impulses, you’re in luck. A recent sobering study shows that a sizable amount of people in the U.S. have seriously considered shooting someone else at least once in their lives.
Researchers in Michigan examined nationally representative survey data. They found that an estimated 7% of Americans—more than 19 million—had thought about shooting another person in their lifetime. Interestingly enough, factors like already owning a gun weren’t associated with an added risk of having these desires, though others like living in a city or being younger were.
“Prevention efforts are needed to address gun violence risk among those with and without access to firearms,” the authors wrote in their paper, published last month in JAMA Network Open.
Shooting impulses
Though the death rate has declined slightly in recent years, gun violence remains an urgent public health threat in the U.S. About 44,000 Americans died from firearms in 2024, while more than 200 people on average every day visit an emergency room with firearm wounds.
While plenty of research has focused on the things that could predispose someone to gun violence, the researchers say there’s been little focus on quantifying how many people might consider using a gun in the first place. So they decided to analyze data from the National Firearms, Alcohol, Cannabis, and Suicide survey, which is run out of the University of Michigan. Between May and September 2025, the project polled roughly 7,000 adults from across the country about various gun and drug-related topics.
All in all, 3.3% of respondents said they had seriously thought about shooting someone else in the past year, while 7.3% admitted to having thought about it at some point in their lives. About 1.6% of people also thought about acquiring a gun for the purpose of shooting someone, while 0.6% reported having brought a gun to a specific location with the intent of shooting someone.
Of those who reported thinking about shooting someone else, the most likely potential target would have been “an enemy” (51%), followed by a complete stranger (24.6%). About 14% had wanted to shoot a government official; roughly 10% had thought about shooting a current or former romantic partner; and just under 7% a co-worker or boss.
What makes someone trigger-happy?
The survey data might also provide some insight into what makes people more likely to contemplate gun violence.
Risk factors associated with thinking about shooting someone else, for instance, included: being younger, being male, being Black, living in a city, living in the Midwest, and having less formal education. On the other hand, factors like income, gun ownership, and political party affiliation weren’t associated with any higher risk.
“The demographic correlates of these thoughts were consistent with those for firearm interpersonal violence, suggesting the existence a high-risk group even in the absence of gun ownership,” the authors noted.
And though it’s not clear how best to predict whether someone will go from thinking about gun violence to actually perpetuating it, there might yet be opportunities to intervene before it’s too late, the researchers say. Based on the survey data, about 1.5% of Americans have previously told others about their thoughts of shooting someone else, while 0.5% have gone as far as to have others store their guns for safekeeping during a crisis.
“This provides a point of intervention, especially in states with extreme risk protection order or red flag laws that allow for the temporary removal of firearms,” they wrote.
Also, for those of you wondering, yes, I was inspired to write about this study after recently seeing The Drama.
