Things I Learned About on Wikipedia While Doing a Poor Job Distracting Myself From the News

Guns. There are an estimated 120.5 privately owned guns per 100 people in the US of A. A person could survive an encounter with a single gun if they're very lucky. 20.5? Not a chance. Even half a gun could give you trouble (pistol whipping, being thrown & used as its own projectile, etc.). But that's the cold, hard truth in a number: 20.5. That's how many guns outnumber each of us here by. Each and every single one of us. Most of them unregistered. Statistics are interesting! I wonder if the politics of the United States intersects with guns in any way whatsoever. Let's go to Politics of the United States dot Wikipedia dot gov.

I like that there's a "Concerns, Problems, and Criticism" section. Very matter-of-fact. This could be helpful. Quote: "In an August 31, 2022 poll by Quinnipiac University, 69 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Republicans replied yes to the question 'Do you think the nation's democracy is in danger of collapse'." True bipartisanship. Plus? It's the funny sex number. Hell yeah. We're all interested in that funny number, aren't we folks? It's crazy how similar us voters are at the end of the day. Let's continue on in this section a bit more. Scrolling down and highlighting text at random now: "...the interests of some are overrepresented, while others are underrepresented... law-making is dominated by a small economic elite molding it to their interests... the U.S. is already a one-party state, and no longer meets the minimum requirements to be considered a democracy... ". Huh! Well, that seems less than ideal but it's good to learn about these things.

The voting public and the gun-owning public probably have a lot of overlap, come to think of it. And I'm not sure we have anything in common with any sort of economic elite. I'll have to learn more to find out, I guess.

Shout out to Wikipedia! I love learning.

Nicky Flowers - 03/13/25 - Learn more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire :-) - (send any comments/questions to hello at nickyflowers dot com)