Does it at least make sense to ban them in dense fire-prone cities? One burning roof in San Francisco can easily become an entire city burning. I don’t see why a city can’t protect themselves against a public saftey hazard.
Billy, I’m not taking this personally- I’ve got pretty thick skin. Some say too thick, but that’s another story.
Your link to CPSC shows firework injuries declining over the past several years. Have laws become more strict or less strict over that period? If more strict, doesn’t that support the notion that stricter laws save lives? If you have a cite showing laws have indeed become more lenient coupled with lower injury/death rates, then I’d change my mind. As of now, I still believe that one firework dismemberment will more than offset any increase in sales tax revenue.
Regarding child seats, I’m all in favor of them. High user costs but very high benefits. Making people wear knee pads while out for a stroll is preposterous- high costs and low benefits.
Sqweels,Read up a couple of posts, won’t you please? Look at the drug trade and please tell me how well the war on drugs is working, then tell me how you will make illegal, and then enforce, fireworks regulations? You can’t, you won’t. You will accomplish one thing: You will increase the crime rate. What evidence do I need that illegal things can still be obtained ? Oh, I don’t know, maybe the crack addicts and hookers I drove by on Cicero avenue an hour and a half ago could answer that.
and if the casualty rate is about the same, or the injury rate is lower per fireworks user(likely, since in the legal states there are bound to be more users) then it’s ok, right?
Thanks! I’m laughing my ass off at the idea that someone actually believes this. Like I’ve said, I have used fireworks for years, but these days it’s much more gratifying to me to watch someone else spend the cash- and if fireworks are illegal this won’t change, the sole thing which will change is the fact that my neighbors will have to drive farther and spend more to get their stuff.
MSU, if you look at the statistics the injury rate has declined while fireworks usage has increased by orders of magnitude. Personal theory, and this is just a theory, is that people are getting better at understanding safety, that children are being kept away from the stuff more, that safer fireworks are being made. OK, the last part isn’t theory- safer fireworks are being made.
Thanks for being civil, MSU. it’s a lot more fun if it’s fun. Kneepads in public may be preposterous but so, at one time, were airbags. child seats. Seatbelts. Safety glass. Crumple zones. Don’t forget that in my parents generation, the idea of putting your seat belt on while driving was considered excessive and invasive. In fact it was often never considered at all.
Not all laws like this are intrinsically bad. Laws protecting children, like mandatory child seats, make some sense. In my mind it is a commonsense thing that a child be protected as best as can be. Making it illegal for children to purchase or use fireworks? as commonsense as making it illegal for them to purchase or use tobacco or alcohol. Making it illegal for adults? Well, it follows that making adults wear kneepads and helmets is just as defensible as making sales of fireworks illegal. There are risks in everything. As an adult, you have to face those risks, and if you pick up a firework and light the fuse your risks have gone way up. Suck it up, be an adult, and choose wisely. Certainly, don’t legislate away people’s fun and entertainment because you don’t think it’s a good idea. What if the only way you could hear music was to actually pay the entertainer to play it? Hell, I’d LOVE to see an ordinance that restricted people’s right to carry boomboxes on subways- there may even BE such ordinances. Sometimes disliking something in your surroundings is the way things are.
b.
The problem with an offhand cost-benefit analysis is that it lacks rigor. Minor problems are suggested above: how do you differetiate between the injuries and damage that would be removed with criminalization, and those that would occur whether or not fireworks were illegal?
But there’s a more basic concern here, and that’s why I thought this was grist for GD. It’s not only about whether certain results can be obtained. Foir example, I could argue that harsh criminalization of homosexual sex, and harsh enforcement of those laws, in the late 1970s and early 1980s could have curtailed the spread of AIDS. A “cost-benefit” analysis might reveal that the cost of preventing some 10% of the populace from having sex is a small price to pay to contain an epidemic.
But that sort of thinking fails to count the “cost” of restraining the personal liberty of millions of people. Such an action would be wrong, even if it saved some lives, because we are not the sort of people that wish to impose such draconian measures upon our society.
I grant that it’s a far cry from the scheme above to limiting or outlawing fireworks. But my point is that the purported method of calculating cost above do not assign any cost to the curtailment of personal liberty. I’m suggesting there is such a cost, even if it is quite difficult to quantify.
- Rick
Sven, I am terrified of fire. I hate the idea that my home could catch fire, and it’s not even close to being one of the multimillion dollar abodes you folks have in California.
Consequently, I use fire resistant shingles etc. on my home. And my home is brick and stone. I know, it may not be attractive as the cedar shingles and siding I’d love to see, but it also won’t catch fire as easily. If you live in an area where fire is likely and the spread of it is easy, you have to take those sort of precautions; I’m well aware that few people like the look of the fire resistant stuff as opposed to the natural materials, I couldn’t agree more, but if you’re going to use flammable materials to build a home just so it “looks nice”, fireworks aren’t your problem.
Banning the use of firearms in the city isn’t such a bad idea, though it is hard to enforce- a better alternative is to have public areas where fireworks can be used by anyone- we have them here, parks where crowds of people (including fire departments and EMT’s) assemble to light off fireworks in a more controlled environment. Used to be you had to get a permit, now I don’t know. It’s a picnic for everyone, there is a “firing line”, crowd containment, portajohns. Plus, in addition to your own stuff, you get to see everyone else’s too, for free!!
I’m not claiming to have the answers. I am fairly certain that more legislation is not a viable answer.
b.
(the above should read “banning Fireworks” of course, not “banning firearms” Sorry.
b.
The sheriff here has gone on record that county deputies are not to cite anyone using illegal fireworks. They will respond to complaints, but they will not arrest anyone. So, every July Fourth and New Year’s, my community and I go to the local fireworks “wholesale outlet” and sign papers stating that we are either farmers buying fireworks to scare birds out of our crops, or we work for the railroad and we use them to warn of incoming trains. Then we gather in the cul-de-sac and act like Americans. It’s the only time of the year we get out and mingle with each other, converse and have fun. I can’t imagine not doing it every six months. The elected officials here understand this and there is little pressure on local government to enforce the law as it is written.
According to the MN DNR:
Track: Under a new state law, some fireworks are allowed in Minnesota this year, but not on public lands. The head of the DNR’s Enforcement Division, Bill Bernhjelm, says that’s still illegal.
“The restrictions that were lifted on fireworks really only apply to private property. Folks that are on private property with the permission of the owner of the property are generally okay, but they’re not okay in places where the public tends to gather.”
Track: Even on private property, fireworks that explode or shoot into the air—such as firecrackers and bottle rockets—are still illegal in Minnesota.
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/radiobite/script_016.html
I live in downtown St Paul, MN and pretty much heard bottle rockets going often almost daily here. Wisconsin’s border is about 20 miles from where I live and they’re legal to purchase across the border and are transported illegally back. I tend to agree with the state law stating that as long as you’re not on public land (the people I’ve seen shooting off the bottle rockets were doing it on the street or sidewalk downtown, which IS public land) and not violating noise ordinances it should be relaxed. But since it was infringing on the peace and safety of people/property in the public area, it should remain illegal sans permit.
Prove it.
Big deal. Rape has been illegal for many years, yet rape still occurs. May as well lift the ban on rape then, eh?
So you committed fraud for the purpose of buying fireworks?
Jthunder: Let’s define a few things. Rape is a criminal act of horrible proportions. Fireworks, properly used, exist for the purpose of entertainment and amusement. While there are regularly public displays of fireworks for general amusement, I don’t have any recollection of there being , say, a demonstration of actual rape for public amusement.
b.
In the very next post, you yourself concede that fireworks make it into Illinois, thanks! Next…
b.
Oh, really? I assume, therefore, that you think the guv’mint should also ban:
surfing (no social benefit +increased risk of concussion/drowning, causing social costs of more needed lifeguards and emergency room doctors);
mountain climbing (no social benefit + social costs of search and rescue teams/ER doctors);
bungee jumping (same analysis)
roller coasters
sports cars
skiing
ice skating
football
sailing
etc., etc.
beer
wine
Your world doesn’t sound like much fun.
Sua
That’s why rape is flat-out illegal and fireworks are merely regulated by law (the rape parallel was bad to begin with).
Nobody is disallowed from obtaining a license to operate a fireworks display, but a certain amount of legislation seems to be a good thing to prevent fireworks salesmen from selling M-80’s to teenagers.
So it is more acceptable to ask the people of San Francisco to tear down their century-old historic homes and rebuild new ones out of brick (which will fall down and kill them in an earthquake) than it is to ask people not to lob fire into the air?
I think your idea about designated areas is actually a pretty good one. I don’t see any reason to ban fireworks outright. But it is reasonable to try to regulate them so that they do not present a public safety hazard.
Um, sven? Things have changed oh-so-slightly since the Great Chicago Fire, or San Francisco in 1906. 
Stuff like fire safety regulations mean that one burning roof ain’t gonna light up a whole city, “easily” or not.
Want evidence? In NYC in 2001, there were 27,788 structural fires I’m sure some of them involved burning roofs. But NYC still standss.
Sua
Dream world. In reality, college student has no money, and therefore no means to make reparation. And I’m still out a car.
Call a cop? Yeah, right. It’s not worth his time to go rattle a bunch of doors at 4 am to find which one was shooting off bottlerockets. They’re all gonna be drunk anyway (legal right in a private residence), and by the time he gets there nobody will fess up and the evidence will be gone. And you can’t “arrest the entire apartment complex” as you so blithlely suggest.
No, Sven, i don’t ask that. I do think it’s more than practical to expect that people not shoot fireworks off in areas where homes could be set afire. Enforcement of existing laws is the key; if you don’t pay attention to a law that prevents you from buying fireworks, you probably have no compunction about shooting them at the roof of a victorian home.
Short of destroying every fire or spark producing device on the planet, there will always be danger to wood homes. Fireworks are not the only problem here; a great deal of new construction still uses flammable materials. No effort has been made to increase the fire retardence of the homes because a lot of people simply won’t stand for “ugly shingles” or “fakey looking siding” I see it here, I see it a lot of places, I doubt San Francisco is any different.
And **Attrayant, ** I couldn’t agree more, as I have already stated. No sale to, or use by, minors.
b.
Ah, so you witnessed the commission of a crime, and you didn’t call a cop.
Were the fireworks that you were “shot” with purchased legally, or illegally? How are you sure? How are you sure it was a college student? How will you be sure that it won’t happen again? A law? Now who is living in a dream world.
My nephiew is still paying his parents back for windows he broke on a locomotive. The cost of those windows exceeds the value of his car. He broke the windows when he was 14, his parents paid for their replacement, he’s paying them back. This is how it should be. Will banning fireworks prevent people from getting them? of course it will not. It will be another useless uninforceable law, and “idiot college kids” will continue to shoot bottle rockets at cars.
And next time, remember that not reporting a crime allows the criminal action to continue. Very noble of you to just blow it off, maybe someone else got hurt after you did nothing. Ask a cop, and see if he doesn’t tell you that “rattling a bunch of doors at 4:00 AM” is his JOB. That’s what cops DO. it’s tough, sometimes thankless, but that’s what cops do.
b.