People stand in an intersection to call for stronger gun control earlier this year in Washington. Amanda Voisard/The Washington Post

A growing number of Americans, including Democrats and Republicans, now view gun violence as a significant problem, and a majority expect it to get worse over the next five years, according to a new poll released Wednesday by Pew Research Center.

While the poll found that twice as many Democrats as Republicans said gun violence is a “very big” problem in the nation – 81% of Democrats compared to 38% of Republicans – Pew noted that, over the last year, the number of people in both parties who said gun violence is a “very big” problem has increased 11 percent.

The growing concern about gun violence comes amid an increase in mass shootings. According to a database maintained by USA Today and Northeastern University, the number of mass shootings in the country in 2022 was the second highest since the two organizations began tracking these incidents in 2006. So far this year, 28 mass killings have occurred, according to the database, all involving guns.

Mass killings in Columbine, Colo.; Newtown, Conn.; Las Vegas, and Orlando indelibly marked the nation in the past quarter-century. This year, gun violence in Allen, Tex.; Nashville, and Michigan State University put 2023 on pace to set a modern record.

According to the Pew poll, 60% of Americans said that gun violence is a “very big problem” in the country today, while 23% said it is a “moderately big problem.” Thirteen percent say it is “a small problem,” while only 4% said gun violence is “not a problem at all.”

The poll found that 62% of Americans said that the level of gun violence will increase over the next five years – twice as many as those who said it will stay at around the same level. Pew also found that, since 2021, the share of Americans who said that violent crime is a major problem has increased from 52% to 64% among Republicans, and from 44% to 52 % among Democrats.

Still, members of both parties remain split over gun ownership. Pew found that 79% of Republicans and independents who lean toward Republicans said that gun ownership increases safety, while 78% of Democrats and those independents who lean Democratic said it decreases safety.

Last summer, President Biden signed into law a bipartisan gun-control bill – the most significant legislative action taken on gun control in three decades – that was the result of negotiations by a handful of Republican and Democratic senators, led by Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and John Cornyn, R-Tex., in the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde, Tex., and Buffalo.

While members of both parties celebrated the measure, Democrats, including Biden, conceded that it did not go as far as they or gun-control advocates wanted. In addition to providing funding for mental health services and school security initiatives, the bill expands criminal background checks for some gun buyers, bars a larger group of domestic-violence offenders from purchasing firearms, and funds programs that would allow authorities to seize guns from troubled individuals.

According to the Pew poll, the share of Americans who said gun laws should be stricter has shifted only slightly, from 53% in 2021 to 58% today. While a majority of women – 64% – said gun laws should be strengthened, only 51% of men said the same. Notably, 77% of Black Americans said gun laws should be stricter, alongside 74% of Asian Americans and 68% of Hispanic Americans. Among White Americans, 51% said the same.

Research released in April from KFF found that 42% of Black Americans have personally experienced being threatened by a gun, seeing someone injured with a gun, or having a family member killed by a gun, including by suicide. Nearly six in 10 Black Americans say that a family member has experienced one of those things. For Hispanic Americans, the figure is 54%. Fewer than half of White Americans report having family members come that close to gun violence, and only about a quarter of Whites have personally experienced any such threats or violence.