Gun Violence In The USA

With the recent shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Griffiths, resulting in the deaths of 6 of her constituents, including a 9 year old girl named Christina Green, and the wounding of 13 more, the issue of gun control has come up again. I thought it might be interesting to share a few statistical facts about the number of gun violence victims in the United States in a given year. The following facts and figures come from the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The Brady Campaign is An organization which is named in honor Of James Brady who was the Press Secretary for President Ronald Reagan on the day of the assassination attempt on Reagan on March 30th, 1981. Mr. Brady was shot in the head on that day and suffered serious brain injuries. The following figures are compiled from statistics gathered over the last few years. The figures are only to do with gun violence and do not include various other types of violence leading to deaths such as knife attacks, beatings, bombings, poisonings or what have you:

More than 100,000 People are shot each year in America by various types of gun violence including murder, assaults, suicides, accidents, or some kind of a police action.

More than 66,000 survive gun violence every year.

More than 32,000 do not survive their gun attacks.

More than 17,000 people commit suicide every year using guns.

More than 12,000 people are murdered every year with guns.

More than 3000 children and teens die each year. Over 2000 of these the result of murder using guns.

More than 600 children and teens kill themselves every year with guns.

More than 600 total individuals are killed accidentally each year by guns.

More than 250 people are shot every day in the United States.

Almost 100 of these shooting victims die every day.

Almost 10 children and teens die every day from gun violence.

Dead Celebrities And Their Last Words

Almost everybody is going to have a headstone one day and what you decide to have put on yours is going to say a lot about who and what you were. Some people have very serious sayings on theirs and some go a little bit more comical and shoot for a final laugh. Below listed are some famous dead celebrities and what they finally had put on their headstones in no particular order of importance or time frame:

Mel Blanc - (Voice Of many cartoon characters including Bugs Bunny) - "That's all Folks."

Frank Sinatra - (Singer, Actor) - "The Best is Yet To Come."

Will Bonney - (A.K.A. "Billy The Kid") - "The Boy Bandit King, He died as he lived."

Al Capone - (Gangster) - "My Jesus Mercy."

Bette Davis - (Actress) - "She did it the hard way."

Dean Martin - (Singer, Actor) - "Everybody loves somebody sometime."

Jayne Mansfield - (Actress) - "We live to love you more each day."

Jim Morrison - (Rock star, The Doors) - "True to his own spirit."

Will Rogers - (Humorist) - "I never met a man I didn't like."

Merv Griffin - (Talk Show Host) - "I will NOT be right back after these commercial messages."

John Ritter - (Actor "Three's Company") - " And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make."

Sir. Isaac Newton - (Scientist, Inventor) - "Nature and nature's laws lay hid at night: God said let Newton be and all was light."

Leaf Cutter Ants Display Intelligent Labor Skills

It has been known for a long time that ants have a seriously evolved societal structure within their anthill colonies. Scientists have recently observed that they are also capable of dividing labor skills based on which members of the colony are most suitable for certain tasks. Scientists in Oregon have noticed that the younger leaf cutting ants are always the ones that use their sharp mandibles to cut leaves into smaller sections in order that they can be more easily carried away. They have observed that over time as the ants grow older and their mandibles grow more dull and less effective at cutting leaves they shift away from doing it and give that task over to younger ants while they take over the task of exclusively carrying away the cut leaves, which scientists call leaf disks. In case you are wondering A Leaf Cutter Ant Queen can live for about 14 years and deliver in excess of 150 million offspring in her lifetime.

Constitution Misread Aloud On The Floor Of The House

January 6th was opening day for the 112th Congress in the U.S. House of Representatives. The new Republican leadership led by the permanently orange faced new Speaker of the House John Boehner of Ohio who again cried openly during the proceedings. Boehner cries so often that his new nickname is "The Weeper of the House." They began the Congress this time by reading the entire U.S. Constitution out loud on the floor of the House. Well that sounds good enough being the the Constitution is only about 5 or 6 pages if you include all 26 amendments. Right away there was some dispute about whether they should read some parts of it out loud like the amendment which prohibited alcohol. The Amendment no longer is valid because it was repealed. After some mild bickering they decided to read the entire thing as it is. The most embarrassing part of the whole proceeding has to be the fact that they skipped over some key paragraphs of the document because two of the pages got stuck together. No one noticed this for a while until it was finally pointed out and then they went back and read the parts that were skipped. An interesting and embarrassing start for the 112th Congress.