It started in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, "a reaction to the reaction," he calls it. It has become his sardonic, one-man crusade for gun control, argued in simple facts, 140 characters at a time:

"Seriously, hunters. Handing loaded guns up to people in tree stands who grab them by the trigger? Hello? #GunFAIL"

Welcome to #GunFail, blogger David Waldman's two-year (and counting) Twitter project documenting daily unintentional shootings among legal gun owners in America. While the circumstances are at times comical – people shooting themselves with guns in their pockets, for example – Waldman's point is serious: he aims to refute pro-gun arguments about how guns are safe, how most owners are responsible and how only bad guys should fear them.

The seed for the idea, Waldman says, was planted when the National Rifle Association and other advocates suggested arming teachers after Sandy Hook – never mind that mixing teachers, kids and firearms seems a recipe for disaster. What could possibly go wrong?

"The pushback was, 'That's nothing to happen. The teachers are going to be trained. How many times do people accidentally fire guns, anyway?'" he says.

The idea blossomed when Waldman came across a news item for "Gun Appreciation Day" about a month later.

"I saw there was an accidental shooting at a gun show, which struck me as ironic," says Waldman, a writer for the lefty blog Daily Kos. After headlines about a second gun-show shooting the same day, "I thought, 'We've got something here.' I wondered how often this happens and how many ways there are to get yourself in trouble" with a gun.

The answer: Lots.

New owners discharging guns accidentally dropped on the floor. Experienced owners cleaning loaded weapons. Hunters shooting each other, and themselves. And children playing with firearms that the NRA says have triggers too difficult for little fingers to pull, Waldman says, so kids use their thumbs instead.

Though he's racked up enough incidents to prove his point, Waldman says he doesn't plan to stop any time soon. "Mostly I'm surprised at the number of people that are so strongly connected with their guns that they don't want to know about what's happening. It's surprising to see people close their eyes to it and pretend it doesn't happen."

At the same time, "There are enough stories that you can put together a theory that refutes a lot of the gun rights theories," he says. "They've continued to motivate me."

Family Ties … to Guns

Though Thanksgiving is in the rear-view mirror – taking ideological, extended-family dinner-table arguments with it – Christmas is dead ahead, and we here at Whispers think it's never too soon to begin prepping for Round Two 'Round the Turkey if gun rights happen to be the (wish)bone of contention. The helpful folks at Trace, a website devoted to the issue, have come up with a guide to a fact-based, turkey-dinner debate over whether all guns should be banned or there should be a handgun in every pot. That includes data grappling with talking points that gun-free zones are engraved invitations for gun-toting hooligans to open fire (they're not), that mental illness is the biggest cause of mass shootings (it isn't) and that background checks won't stop criminals from getting their hands on a gun (that one's a lot more complicated.)

The Terrorist Watch List and Guns

With terrorism on the mind in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, the White House announced it wants lawmakers to tighten a loophole in the nation's gun laws that could allow lone-wolf militants to purchase weapons, but that's a non-starter for the right. But, Capitol Hill Democrats say President Barack Obama can use his executive authority to close one gaping hole in the gun law that would allow potential terrorists to buy weapons without a background check.

And Obama and Congress might want to get moving on the issue soon: A new federal report reveals that suspects on the FBI's terrorist watch list were cleared to buy firearms a stunning 91 percent of the time during a six-year period –-- despite going through a mandated criminal background check to determine if they should be allowed to make the purchase.

The report from the General Accounting Office shows that, during that six-year period, 1,228 watch-list suspects applied to buy firearms and submitted to background checks, but only about 109 were banned from buying weapons. That's because "no prohibiting information was found – such as felony convictions, illegal immigrant status, or other disqualifying factors," according to the report. The GAO reports that, in 2007, the Justice Department gave Congress a legislative template to fix the problem but nothing's been done so far.

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