Chattanooga Tennessee Shooting Reignites Gun Control Debate

This is what we know about guns in the United States. You may or may not like the data, but you cannot dispute the data, because facts are just that, facts. Facts are not emotional, and facts don't take sides. Let's get started.
We know American gun ownership by far surpasses gun ownership in other countries. “With less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States is home to 35-50 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns,” according to the Small Arms Survey.
Approximately 20% of gun owners own 65% of the guns. The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms reports that about 5.5 million new firearms were manufactured in America in 2010. 95% of these were for the U.S. market.
While the number of firearm homicides dropped dramatically over a 20-year period ending in 2011, the percentage of violent crimes involving firearms has stayed fairly constant, according to the 2013 survey.
In 2015 gun deaths are expected to surpass car deaths in the United States. That's according to a Center for American Progress report, which cites CDC data that shows guns will kill more Americans under 25 than cars in 2015. Already more than a quarter of the U.S. teenagers, 15 years old and up, who die of injuries in the United States are killed in gun-related incidents, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Every day in the U.S., an average of 289 people are shot. Eighty-six of them die: 30 are murdered, 53 kill themselves, two die accidentally, and one is shot in a police intervention, the Brady Campaign reports.
Guns and kids:
82 children under five years old died from firearms in 2010 compared with 58 law enforcement officers killed by firearms in the line of duty (sources: CDF, CDC, FBI) More kids ages 0-19 died from firearms every three days in 2010 than died in the 2012 Newtown, Conn., massacre (source:CDF,CDC) Nearly three times more kids (15,576) were injured by firearms in 2010 than the number of U.S. soldiers (5,247) wounded in action that year in the war in Afghanistan (source: CDF, CDC, Department of Defense) Half of all juveniles murdered in 2010 were killed with a firearm (source: Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention)
Shooting sprees are not rare in the United States.
Mother Jones has tracked and mapped every shooting spree in the last three decades. "From 1982 through 2012, there have been at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii," they found. And in most cases, the killers had obtained their weapons legally. 15 of the 25 worst mass shootings in the last 50 years took place in the United States.
Harvard University researchers say U.S. mass shootings have surged in recent years, contradicting earlier studies.
The Harvard researchers said the rate of mass shootings has increased threefold since 2011, occurring on average every 64 days, compared with an average of every 200 days in the years from 1982 to 2011.
The researchers used a database created by Mother Jones to look at mass shootings, which they defined as attacks that "took place in public, in which the shooter and the victims generally were unrelated and unknown to each other, and in which the shooter murdered four or more people."
Gun Violence in the Home
Claims that guns are used defensively millions times every year have been widely discredited. Using a gun in self-defense is no more likely to reduce the chance of being injured during a crime than various other forms of protective action.
Guns kept in the home are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal unintentional shooting, criminal assault or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense. That is, a gun is more likely to be used to kill or injure an innocent person in the home than a threatening intruder.
Though guns may be successfully used in self-defense even when they are not fired, the evidence shows that their presence in the home makes a person more vulnerable, not less. Instead of keeping owners safer from harm, objective studies confirm that firearms in the home place owners and their families at greater risk. Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that living in a home where guns are kept increased an individual’s risk of death by homicide by between 40 and 170%. Another study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology similarly found that “persons with guns in the home were at greater risk of dying from a homicide in the home than those without guns in the home.” This study determined that the presence of guns in the home increased an individual’s risk of death by homicide by 90%
The following report which used data from 2012, the most recent year for which national data is available. In that year, 1,706 females were murdered by males in single-victim/single-offender incidents. That's 33 victims every week and more than four every day.
Just as in previous years, it was found the most common weapon men use to murder women is a gun. For homicides in which the murder weapon could be identified, 52 percent of victims were shot and killed with a gun. The most common firearm was a handgun, used in 69 percent of the homicides committed with guns.
States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.
In 2011 economist Richard Florida studied the correlations between gun deaths and other kinds of social indicators. Some of what he found was, perhaps, unexpected: Higher populations, more stress, more immigrants, and more mental illness were not correlated with more deaths from gun violence. But one thing he found was, perhaps, perfectly predictable: States with tighter gun control laws appear to have fewer gun-related deaths.

Real Ghost Photos, The 5 Footed Dog

Jim Carrey's Ultra Crazy anti Vaccine Rants

Make no mistake about it. The first and foremost reason that I don't like this Anti Vaccine rant by Jim Carrey is that I really hate it when entertainers get political...on anything. I hate it even more when those entertainers are comedians. It just makes them instantly unfunny to me for ever more.

I can't say that I was a huge fan of Jim carrey to begin with, his comedy is slapstick, and I like dry humor. So...to be truthful he will lose no money on me, but not so for the masses. He may have just retired with his weird ravings on vaccines. Science says that he is confused, and wrong, and I will always put my money on science.
In his own words:
Jim Carrey ?@JimCarrey Jun 30
California Gov says yes to poisoning more children with mercury and aluminum in manditory vaccines. This corporate fascist must be stopped.
Jim Carrey ?@JimCarrey Jun 30
They say mercury in fish is dangerous but forcing all of our children to be injected with mercury in thimerosol is no risk. Make sense?
Jim Carrey ?@JimCarrey Jun 30
I am not anti-vaccine. I am anti-thimerosal, anti-mercury. They have taken some of the mercury laden thimerosal out of vaccines. NOT ALL!
Jim Carrey ?@JimCarrey Jun 30
The CDC can't solve a problem they helped start. It's too risky to admit they have been wrong about mercury/thimerasol. They are corrupt.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. said that Mr. Carrey’s insistence on making an issue out of a non-issue, like the "supposed" dangers of the preservative thimerosal actually is an anti-vaccine position, Offit explained. By Offit's count, there are several high-quality studies that show thimerosal in vaccines does not cause autism or developmental delays in the children who receive them.

Some vaccines, including certain flu vaccines, still contain trace amounts of thimerosal. Carrey likened this chemical to the methylmercury found in fish, which is a neurotoxin and can cause serious damage to people if ingested in large amounts.
Methylmercury and the ethylmercury used to preserve vaccines are two very different things, said Offit. For one, everyone is exposed to methylmercury. It builds up in the body over a lifetime of exposure, and too much of it can cause nervous damage and permanent disability. Ethylmercury, on the other hand, is a byproduct the human body makes when processing thimerosal. It does not remain in the body for long amounts of time.

In the year 2000, because of reaction to parental outrage over mercury in vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that they were removing the chemical in most childhood vaccines. Dr. Offit, who served on the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices at the time, voted against it. In caving to unscientific fears about thimerosal, said Offit, the CDC’s decision to remove the additive may have actually alarmed parents more, not reassured them, when it came to vaccination safety.

"I think they unnecessarily scared the American public about thimerosal,” said Offit. “They caved to the perception that mercury just doesn’t sound good, instead of trying to educate the public that the quantity of mercury you’re being exposed to in a vaccine is infinitely less than anything that you’re exposed to elsewhere.”
In short, and to agree with Dr. Offit: Jim Carrey is not a doctor, he is not a scientist, he is an actor. Personally I believe that he is an actor using his prestiguese to wrongly influence people, and that is dangerous.

Real Ghost, Orbs, and Shadows Caught on Video

I haven't done a Ghost Box (Spirit Box) session for a while, so I thought it was time. Unfortunately my camera battery ran down rather quickly, but I did manage to capture a couple of anomalies. I hope you enjoy this.

The truth about Dylann Roof Confessed Killer of 9 People at AME Church, ...

Suspect Dylann Roof has allegedly confessed to killing nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina according to a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation.

Dalton Tyler, who said he has known Roof for seven months to one year, said he met Roof through a good friend. He also said Roof's parents, with whom he said the suspect was "on and off," had previously bought him a gun but never allowed him to take it with him until the week of the shootings.
It was also said that Dylann Roof purchased the .45 caliber pistol with $400 his father gave him for his birthday, other sources said.
There is loophole in federal law (backed by the NRA) that has been exploited some 15,000 times over the last five years, according to the Everytown for Gun Safety advocacy group – and that allowed Dylann Roof, the alleged Charleston gunman, to buy his weapon.
"He was big into segregation and other stuff," Tyler said. "He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself." Roof was among a dozen church members who were attending a Bible study at Emanuel AME, one of the nation's oldest African-American churches. He asked to sit next to the pastor, and about an hour into the meeting, opened fire on the people there. He killed six women and three men, including the pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney. Three people survived.

Charleston County Coroner Rae Wilson said Thursday that the gunman walked into the church and didn't raise any red flags among the worshipers. "The suspect entered the group and was accepted by them, as they believed that he wanted to join them in this Bible study," she said. Then, "he became very aggressive and violent."
A survivor said that the shooter "reloaded five different times, and he just said, 'I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go."

Roof had two prior arrests earlier this year after he was stopped at a Columbia shopping mall and was found with suboxone, a type of narcotic used to treat opiate addictions, police reports show. He was taken into custody on a drug charge, and then again the following month for trespassing at the mall. Roof's uncle said that he had received a .45-caliber handgun from his father for his birthday in April.

Joseph Meek Jr. said that slaying suspect Dylann Roof recently went on a rant about the Trayvon Martin case and riots in Baltimore over the death of a black man in police custody. The two were childhood friends and recently reconnected over Facebook. "He said blacks were taking over the world. Someone needed to do something about it for the white race," Meek told the AP. "He said he wanted segregation between whites and blacks. I said, 'That's not the way it should be.' But he kept talking about it." Police said Roof was arrested today at a traffic stop in Shelby, North Carolina, about 250 miles north of Charleston.
A citizen saw the suspect's car and reported it to police, who responded and made the arrest, police said. Roof cooperated with the officer who stopped him, according to police.
He has been charged with nine counts of murder and a weapons possession charge, police said.

Roof has told police that he "almost didn't go through with it because everyone was so nice to him," And yet he decided he had to "go through with his mission." Please watch the Video, and let me know what you think.

Large Corporations Buy up Water Rights as the Earth moves toward a Water...

A Haunting, The History of Ghost Stories

A Tale to Tell

Not long after ancient man learned to communicate, Ghostly Stories, tales of specters who have come back from the afterlife to haunt familiar places left behind, have been told and re-told in the nightly circles of many cultures. Often including those who have died early, violent or mysterious deaths, or those who have been wronged.

The Ghost could appear of its own accord or be summoned by someone.
A widespread belief concerning ghosts is that they are composed of a misty, airy, or subtle material. Anthropologists have linked this thought to early beliefs that ghosts were the "person within the person" (the person's spirit), most noticeable in ancient cultures as a person's breath, which upon exhaling in colder climates appears visibly as a white mist. Belief in ghosts is found in all cultures around the world, and thus ghost stories may be passed down orally or in written form.

In the "campfire story", a form of oral storytelling with participants gathered around in a circle, frequently involves the recounting ghost stories, or other such terror tales. Some of the stories have been passed down for generations, with varying versions across multiple cultures.
The people of the ancient world believed that the human soul survived bodily death. Children were brought up to believe that the dead lived on in another form that still required some kind of sustenance, usually pertaining to the kind of life they had lived on earth, how their remains were disposed of at their death, and how they were remembered by the living. The details of the afterlife in different cultures varied, but the constants were that such a realm existed, that it was governed by immutable laws, and that the souls of the dead would remain there unless given license by the gods to return to the land of the living for some specific reason. These reasons could include improper funeral rites, lack of any kind of burial, death by drowning where the body was not recovered, murder in which the body was never found (never properly buried), or to resolve some unfinished business or provide a true account of the events surrounding their death, such as when one was murdered and needed one's death avenged and the murderer brought to justice in order to rest in peace. Sounds very much like the present time.

The appearance of ghosts of the departed, even those of loved ones, was rarely considered a welcome experience. The dead were supposed to remain in their own land and were not expected to cross back over to the world of the living. When such an event did occur, it was a sure sign that something was terribly wrong, and those who experienced a spiritual encounter were expected to take care of the problem in order for the ghost to return to its proper place.

Even the Bible weighs in on the ghostly topic...
Isaiah 26:19
Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.
There seem to be only slight glimmers of belief in the after-life in the Jewish tradition before the second century BC. Christians believe that Christ’s death and resurrection overcame death and evil. Those who had died prior to Christ’s coming waited for Christ to open the gates of heaven and bring eternal life to all as he brought life to the dead Lazarus.
The Church believes that after death, souls are judged and sent to the appropriate place in what is called the particular judgment. Hebrews 9.27 confirms “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: ” (2 Corinthians 5.6-8) "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight: 8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." (Matthew 25.46)"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. (Luke 16.22-24)"And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried.."
Therefore, according to the Bible, souls of the dead are obviously not roaming the earth and when houses are haunted it is not the souls of the dead. Who is it then? The Bible believes that it is the work of good and evil spirits.

The Bible states that there are good and evil spirits or demons who are active among humanity. Possession by evil spirits is evident in New Testament times and Jesus overcame their power by expelling them from the possessed. (Matthew 8:28-34)28 When He came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed met Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way. 29 And they cried out, saying, “What business do we have with each other, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?” 30 Now there was a herd of many swine feeding at a distance from them. 31The demons began to entreat Him, saying, “If You are going to cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.” 32 And He said to them, “Go!” And they came out and went into the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the waters. 33 The herdsmen ran away, and went to the city and reported everything, including what had happened to the demoniacs. 34 And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw Him, they implored Him to leave their region.
Sickness often was attributed to the devil, but the message is Christ healed people of spiritual and physical illness.
The Church has affirmed the existence of evil and evil spirits and acknowledged their negative effects. We are called to work with God to struggle against evil in whatever form it takes, whether it be social injustice, poverty, sickness, dishonesty, etc.
Vatican II tells us: “Humanity is obliged to wrestle constantly if it is to cling to what is good” (Church in the Modern World, n. 37). The Church insists that all of creation is under God’s domain and evil cannot suppress our freedom and responsibility. God sent Jesus to save us from the power of evil and he overcame evil by his death and resurrection.

There is much more than this brief statement can say about evil spirits in the world. We cannot blame everything on them.
Spirits who roam the earth and haunt houses often torment the living but sometimes they seem to act in good ways. According to Paul: “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” (2 Corinthians 11.14).
When the Pharisees accuse Jesus of being possessed in John’s Gospel, Jesus retorts "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8.44).
there are many references in Sacred Scripture to the evil spirit, the devil roaming the earth. "And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." (Job 1:7)

Weather or not you choose to believe in ghost, spirits, demons (or what ever you choose to call them), is up to you, but I believe you would be missing out on a wonderful thing if you should choose not to take part in a ghost story or two.
After all, it is the mysteries that make life interesting. Lest we forget... Here are a few Real Ghost Stories for you now to enjoy. Visit for awhile the True Ghost Stories from around the world.