Since abandoning Facebook, I have been spending more time here & also on Twitter. One of the most interesting things I've found on Twitter so far is also one of the most macabre: it's an anonymous project called @gundeaths.

The premise is simple: @gundeaths issues one Tweet for every confirmed death by gun in North America. "Confirmed" usually means the Tweet includes a link to a newspaper article reporting the death. The data is necessarily incomplete - @gundeaths can only post the events that s/he learns about, probably mostly through crowdsourcing. I've re-Tweeted a few news stories from Houston to @gundeaths, & they have then shown up with a Tweet in his/her feed. Anyone with a Twitter feed & a source of local news can contribute. There is no commentary on the Twitter feed, just the ceaseless tolling of a grim bell. Death, death, death.

In the aftermath of the Newtown tragedy, Slate picked up on the work being done by @gundeaths when their reporters were trying to find statistics on the topic. They are tabulating the data & making it available to anyone for any project.

As of January 9 at 8:30 AM, at least 643 people have been killed by guns in the United States since the Newtown shootings.