Video by Reed Timmer and his storm chasers in Mississippi shows what it's like when a tornado is coming right at you.

CLICK HERE for the latest on the storms that swept across the South.

Linda Jackson describes the tornado that destroyed her home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to CNN's Reynolds Wolf.

CLICK HERE for the latest on the storms that swept across the South.

Bennie Lacy describes the tornado that destroyed her home in Pleasant Grove, Alabama, saying "all the windows exploded."

CLICK HERE for the latest on the storms that swept across the South.

CNN's Martin Savidge reports on how a tornado in Pleasant Grove, Alabama, produced two outcomes in two nearby homes.

CLICK HERE for the latest on the storms that swept across the South.

Reed Timmer says a tornado in Mississippi was "more violent" than any tornado he's seen in 13 years of storm chasing.

CLICK HERE for the latest on the storms that swept across the South.

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s six OFF-SET questions is Daniel Streitfeld, 26, from Dallas, Texas. A 2008 graduate of Middlebury College, he arrived in Syria on March 6 of this year, and was studying Arabic independently. He sent us the following answers right before he departed Syria on Thursday, April 28.

First of all, are you in danger when you leave your apartment?

I live in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Damascus. During the weekdays I have felt safe going out and walking around. To be honest, if you didn't know better, it looks positively tranquil–old men smoking water pipes, children out and about, even some older European tourists sight-seeing.

However on the weekends you must be much more careful. Last Friday I was sitting in my bedroom with the door open and at about 3:00 p.m., I heard sustained machine gun fire for about 30 minutes, in the very heart of Damascus.

On Saturday night, a bar owner warned us that he thought there was a gunfight in the street, but we saw nothing. Last week I was in the old Roman city of Bosra, about 15 miles east of Der'a. I didn't see anything abnormal, but the normally popular tourist stop had turned into a ghost town–people seemed to be staying inside their homes for the most part. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s six OFF-SET questions Erich Pratt, director of communications for Gun Owners of America.

Gun Owners of America (GOA) is a non-profit lobbying organization formed in 1975 to preserve and defend the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. GOA sees firearms ownership as a freedom issue. Over the last 30 years, GOA has built a nationwide network of attorneys to help fight court battles in almost every state in the nation to protect gun owner rights.

We’ve turned to Pratt because on Friday, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, recovering from a devastating bullet wound suffered nearly four months ago, will witness her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, command the space shuttle Endeavour on its last launch. Doctors cleared Giffords, who was shot in the brain at a  January 8 event in Tucson, to attend the scheduled launch in Florida.

On that January day near Tucson, a young man arrested at the Giffords meeting with her constituents allegedly shot nineteen people, killing six of them. Rep. Giffords was shot in the head at point-blank range. Is it the GOA position that the incident might have turned out differently if more people were carrying guns at the event?

There are far more examples every day of guns being used to save life than to take life.  Obviously, one can never predict the outcome of any particular incident.  But as a general rule, the potential victims are always the “first responders” who can deal with the perpetrator much more quickly than the police can.

Consider that in 2007, a gunman entered the New Life Church in Colorado Springs intending to perpetrate one of the greatest massacres in U.S. history.  He was armed with a thousand rounds of ammunition. 

Unfortunately for him, he was only able to kill two people.  The reason?  He was met by a woman with a gun.  Jeanne Assam is a concealed carry permit holder, and she used her firearm to fatally wound the gunman, thus saving hundreds of lives at this church. FULL POST

Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, sent us this response to Thursday's (4-28-11) OFF-SET blog interview with Erich Pratt of the Gun Owners of America.

CLICK HERE to read Pratt's interview.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is thrilled that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' recovery is progressing well enough for her to attend her husband's space shuttle launch. As Jim and Sarah Brady mentioned to me last month when we were remembering the 30th Anniversary of Jim's shooting during the assassination attempt on President Reagan, the road to recovery is a rough one. There will be good days and there will be bad days.

  CLICK HERE to read our OFF-SET interview with Jim and Sarah Brady

For most of the 70,000 Americans injured by guns (in addition to the 30,000 killed by guns) each year in this country, recovery is filled with constant reminders of the pain and the continual drains on their finances, families, and friends. As a country, we do too little to prevent gun violence – and we make it too easy for irresponsible and dangerous people, like the Tucson shooter, to get guns and ammunition capable of shooting a lot of people very quickly. FULL POST

Today’s Numbers of the Day are 1.8 percent and 429,000.

The numbers mean that the quicker recovery we all hope for is becoming more elusive.

Economic growth slowed to a crawl in the first three months of the year. The Commerce Department reported on Thursday that the Gross Domestic Product—which is the broadest measure of the nation's economic health-rose at an annual rate of 1.8%. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today's six OFF-SET questions is Adam Pertman, Executive Director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a national nonprofit that is the pre-eminent research, policy and education organization in its field.

Pertman – a former Pulitzer-nominated journalist – is also Associate Editor of Adoption Quarterly, a research journal dealing with adoption and foster care. He is the author of the just-published book, "Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution is Transforming Our Families – and America."  CLICK HERE to visit Pertman's blog.

The White House released President Barack Obama's original long-form birth certificate Wednesday, seeking to put an end to persistent rumors that he was not born in the United States. What does the release of the certificate mean to those of you who work in the adoption community?

 The most pointed message was for adopted people, who are the only group in America who are legally prohibited from accessing their own original birth certificates.

If that document is so hugely important – to quote my tweet on the subject – when do they get to see theirs? I hope one ray of sunshine that emanates from this bizarre birther controversy is that it shines a light on the access issue. Adoptees shouldn’t be punished simply because of how they entered their families. FULL POST