Safe to say

In Chicago, a teenager suffered critical injuries, including the loss of his hand, on Sunday after a fireworks-related injury.

In Slater, Iowa, a woman was killed and three others injured when a car pulled out onto the street and ran over people leaving an Independence Day parade.

The Fourth of July fireworks celebration in Ocean City was canceled after some rockets ignited prematurely while being unloaded from the delivery truck.

On Saturday evening, firefighters in Champaign, Illinois rushed to a massive dwelling fire. The cause of the fire is ongoing, but there is a "high probability" that fireworks caused it, the fire department said.

A Murfreesboro, Tennessee man lost part of his hand when he tried to shoot off a firework mortar from the sunroof of his car., Murfreesboro Police said.  A 20-year-old woman riding with the 21-year-old man was also injured.

Columbus Blue Jackets goalie Matiss Kivlenieks is dead at 24 of chest trauma from an errant fireworks blast. He was at a party, in a hot tub, when someone thought the best way to celebrate our nation's Independence was to fire off a mortar round...and aim it at the hot tub.

Last week, a woman who came to Annapolis to see her son inducted into the Naval Academy was sitting outside chatting with friends at a hotel in Maryland's capital city when she was killed by two stray bullets fired by someone who was shooting at a car across the street.

Listen. This is not the tone I usually take in my blog, but doggone it, we are losing and maiming too many of us with this nonsense, this careless driving, foolishness with fireworks (and mortars!) and guns, so I think it incumbent upon us all to take a look at how we can be a little safer so we can all be around a little bit longer.