Cite? 
Your mileage clearly varies to mine - by the criteria described above, I should have been rolling on the floor on 9/11, so something’s certainly amiss.
I’m probably at least equally distant from her as you, yet this one just leaves me sad for several reasons. This wasn’t a couple of drunken idiots playing catch with a rattlesnake, it was just a ghastly accident.
I’m with Mangetout. Even if the woman was the world’s biggest moron, her kids were standing there when it happened. I have about the blackest sense of humor around, and I’m not mad at anyone who *does * think it’s funny, but damn. I can’t seem to find the funny here.
I’m with DianaG and others. This is beyond dark humor.
CNN said before that they had to wait to get to her body until the other 24 mortars in the box exploded.
That is one very very messy corpse. Nothing humorous about watching your wife or mother be torn to pieces.
Or maybe it’s just me. Since I’ve picked up body parts after accidents, I find nothing amusing about the idea.
And… just as I hit “submit”, the fire signal goes off in town. Again. Today. Fireworks accident, anyone? :rolleyes:
Cartooniverse
I think that’s the problem. If you don’t realize they’re dangerous, you won’t think much of buying them and setting them off. You can’t be concerned about your lack of experience in such matters if you aren’t aware that there is any to lack. While the woman was certainly negligent to a tragic degree for doing as she did, and I feel for the kids and husband – I mean Og damn, that’s an image that will sear the back of your eyeballs for life – but there are two things a pro-grade fireworks supplier should never, ever do:
- Sell fireworks to an unlicensed person
- (If they’re hell bent on doing so despite it being illegal) Fail to warn the purchaser of the extremely dire consequences of not paying attention and exercising all due caution when using them.
Clearly, the supplier was utterly and completely negligent and cared not a piddle if anyone died using their products, and charges need to be brought against them. Criminal negligence causing death, perhaps? In addition to whatever laws apply to selling professional mortars to unlicensed buyers.
Oh, c’mon. It’s just as stupid to bend over and peer at a bottle rocket that failed to launch as it is to look at a “commercial grade” firework.
Stupid is stupid. We can only hope her kids got their brains from their father.
My opinion is that most Americans believe it their RIGHT and RESPONSIBILITY to handle explosives on the 4th of July. :rolleyes:
I defy anyone to spend the 4th of July in their local Emergency Room watching the horrible injuries file through the door and still think an amatuer handling explosives is a good idea.
I thought exactly the same thing when I saw her message. 
No, they’re around here. And the cops in my town will no doubt say, like they did last year, that there were no arrests and therefore few fireworks.
I think they’ve got Baghdad Bob working for them.
Given the comments about the “catastrophic” head injury, I’d say it’s more likely they got their brains from their mother…
(yeah, I know… I’ll get my coat)
I’m guessing by ‘commercial grade’ they meant something like this http://www.superpyro.com/images_2/large_images/StarCruiser_Large.jpg.
To the person that sets of bottle rockets and smoke bombs, these are reserved for “the guy down the block that sets off the ‘real’ fireworks”
If you watch the video, there’s a clip of someone removing the remains of the device. It was a box about 18 inches on each side, with twenty or so thick tubes stacked inside it.
I dunno… it’d be hard to set up 25 of those to go off in series – there’s only one launch tube provided, after all, and firing them off withOUT the launch tube is definitely contraindicated.
For that matter, I’m still trying to puzzle out how in the hell she managed to DO this. What, she thought lighting the fuse and watching it burn from above was a good idea? I mean, sure, there are fast fuses out there, but every mortar I’ve ever seen – commercial or otherwise – that relied on fire (rather than electrical) ignition had at least a foot of fuse to work with, and usually more. Since the ATF is involved, my guess is this was one of the so-called ‘crates’ of low-altitude mortars that pro crews use (I just helped set some of these up yesterday, as it happens); it’s a 5x5 pack, but the ones I handled were electrically ignited. Those are, relatively, much safer.
If it was a hangfire situation, what she did is even worse! “Hmm, gee, it’s not going boom, let me go stick my head over the hole…” You’d have to be a world-class moron to pull this stunt, and frankly, I’d rather not have such a person around handling fireworks any more.
So, yeah, sorry for the kid and all, but no sympathy for the lady. Stoopid is stoopid; if she’d survived, she’d have nobody to blame but herself. Since she didn’t, hopefully her kid at least will learn that stupid actions result in deadly consequences.
And hopefully they’ll simply accept the fact that she was a fucking moron instead of going on a litigation binge, but somehow I doubt it. They’ll find a way to blame someone else, I’m sure. :rolleyes:
This is what the device looked like.
In the video it’s definitely not a consumer-grade firework. I’ve used those and I don’t think they go over about 2" in diameter. They made very clear in the video that it was a professional-grade firework. It is a 5x5 array as mentioned above.
It actually looks like the thing might have been wrapped up in giftwrap or something - don’t these mortar boxes usually have flashy labels?
Bingo. That’s what the crew I was working with called a crate, but theirs were electrically ignited. I don’t know how to tell which type this was, unfortunately, not that it makes much difference.
Chalk another stupid up to her. One shouldn’t mess around with shit one does not understand, and these things are only available from licensed suppliers.
or they used to write state law in indiana… :rolleyes:
we have some of the lamest fireworks laws in the country. probably in the northern hemisphere, if i bothered to check.
any idiot can get their hands on some fairly potent stuff here these days. i heard and saw those mini-mortars (no idea what they’re actually called) being set off all over the place. they go fairly high up and have a pretty substantial bang when they get there.
what a lot of these geniuses don’t seem to comprehend is - (as has already clearly been stated in this thread) they’re EXPLOSIVES!! scares the crap out of me when i think about it.
tuesday night, ONE of those mini-mortars got out of control and burned down a serious chunk of an apartment complex in a neighboring town.
See, this is the thing I don’t get about trying to excuse what she did – oh, it was just a moment’s carelessness, everybody makes silly mistakes – well, yeh, but who the hell doesn’t know that fireworks are frickin dangerous? Is there a single news outlet in this entire country that, in the days leading up to the Fourth, doesn’t carry stories about gruesome accidents with the stuff? How could anyone not know that looking down the tube of a lit but not yet fired explosive device is complete idiocy? This isn’t some preteen kid doing something stupid because he doesn’t really know what he’s dealing with. This is an adult, fercryinoutloud!
I’m sorry for the kids who had to witness that. Perhaps less sorry for the fiance, who should have had enough sense to stop her if he was near enough to, before it was too late. But her? Not so much. And I too hope the authorities track down whoever provided the fireworks and ream them six ways from Sunday.
It’s stupid, I agree. But unlike some other stupid deaths, I just can’t find it funny; that’s all. I think it’s just this particular permutation of circumstances.