About three million people in the United States carry a loaded firearm daily, while nine million do so at least once a month, according to a new study.
Most of these gun-toting Americans are young men, live in the Southern US states, self-identify as politically conservative, said the study by the Harvard School of Public Health, the University of Colorado and Northeastern University.
Those who carried handguns were more likely to grow up in firearm-owning households and said security is a top reason for walking around with a deadly weapon, according to the report, published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health.
The study is the first in 20 years to look at gun-carrying habits in a country that has repeatedly seen fatal mass shootings at schools, workplaces and concerts, researchers said.
“It was important to study handgun carrying because about 90 percent of all firearm homicides and nonfatal firearm crimes for which the type…