Enjoy the Rockets' Red Glare But Holster That Gat

Last 4th of July an eleven year old girl was gazing at the fireworks lighting up the night sky in Fresno, California when something hit her in the collarbone. Adults assumed she had been burned by an errant firecracker. Nope, an hour and a half later, emergency room doctors removed a bullet lodged in her chest.

"Celebratory gunfire" may be something we associate with jubilant Iraqi policemen after a big soccer match, but bullets also fall from the sky here in the good ole U.S.A. The city of Miami launched a public safety campaign in 2010 with rapper Pitbull aimed at keeping holiday revelry unarmed. "Bullets that go up have to come down, and they sometimes come down on people," said former Miami Police Chief Miguel Exposito.

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So please, gun-toting GOOD readers, leave the heater at home this 4th of July.