Researchers studied individuals’ concerns and behaviors around violence and firearm ownership in California during the COVID-19 pandemic. The representative sample of Californians included 2,870 participants aged 18 or older. Results showed that an additional 2.8% to 5.8% of participants were worried about personally experiencing any kind of violence during the pandemic compared to before, with the exception that concerns about mass shootings decreased. Worry about experiencing violence in the neighborhood increased while worry about experiencing violence in the home or elsewhere remained the same as before the pandemic. During the pandemic, 12.1% of respondents reported being worried that someone they know may physically harm others and 13.3% worried someone they know may harm themselves. This concern was somewhat related to the pandemic for 1.8% and 7.4% of respondents, respectively. Additionally, 69.2% of respondents reported experiencing some form of unfair treatment in the last year, such as being harassed or threatened, with 7.4% of occurrences related to the pandemic. Notably, pandemic-related unfair treatment was 17.2% among Asian participants who had experienced any unfair treatment in the past year. Finally, among all firearm owners, 2.4% (110,000 individuals) were found to have acquired firearms in response to the pandemic. Of those, 43% (47,000 individuals) were first-time owners. Common pandemic-related reasons for acquiring guns were worries of lawlessness, prisoner release, government issues, and firearm store closures. A total of 55,000 people reported unsecure storage methods of firearms, which can increase risk of violence, injury and death. Overall,the authors conclude that action must be taken to prevent pandemic-related violence and mitigate downstream effects of the fear associated with this.