Fireworks

Should fireworks be illegal? Sure, they’re dangerous, but I am dead-set against the government infringing upon personal liberty in the interest of protecting people from themselves.

An aquaintance of mine’s house once burned down because of an illegal bottle rocket. This was three days before he had about five Japanese exchange students coming to visit.

I don’t think it is really a matter of protecting people from themselves, as it is pretecting people from other people.

Incedently, I have to give props to the Fourth of July. We celebrate our nation’s birth by giving drunk people explosives.

Gosh yeah. I mean why should the government care if people get drunk and blow each other up? Hell, it’s a right! I demand access to explosives!

I think Sven hit it on the nose – it’s not protecting people from themselves, but protecting others from bozos.

Immediately before typing this, I again examine the hard pink scar the size of a quarter in the ball of the thumb in my right hand.

Fireworks are very attractive to kids, indeed, that’s there primary attraction.

The little kid that I was didn’t realize which end of the roman candle shot the fireballs, and that you shouldn’t hold it in your hands after you light it.

Third degree burns are very painful and stay that way for days and days. It’s a tough thing for a nine year old to have to go through.

I have no problem with adults doing stupid things, and blowing themselves up, but an awful lot of fireworks end up in the hands of kids who don’t know enough to be safe. Incautious adults are a danger too, as there are quite often children nearby when these things are being set off.

The fun factor is far outweighed by the danger.

Anybody who thinks differently should make it a point to visit one of the 22 Shriner’s hospitals for Children a couple of days after the the 4th of July.

The argument that fireworks should be illegal because stupid drunk people can use them improperly and hurt themselves or wreck other peoples stuff is pretty weak. There’s a LOT more damage done each year by people in automobiles, and yet no one is pushing for a total ban on cars.
Sure it’s a shame that a few kids get hurt each year, but Darwin will always have his due no matter how idiot proof we try to make the world.

Homer:“I’ll need some condoms, pornography, Jack Daniels, illegal fireworks…”

“Celebrate the birth of your country by blowing up a small part of it.”

This is another issue that is more hype than fact. Fireworks injuries and deaths get the attention of the media, which blows the danger all out of proportion.

Here are some actual facts:

In 1999, 16 people died from fireworks injuries. 13 died in 1998. 8,500 emergency room visits were ‘fireworks related’. Almost all of these involved burns and were probably minor injuries (burns to fingers accounted for 2,000 emergency room visits).

Of the 16 deaths, three of them were teenagers that broke into a trailer full of commercial fireworks and had a ‘shell’ explode on them. Two of them were kids who converted the fireworks into bombs by placing them in pipes and were killed by shrapnel. One child died of burns when a pocket full of sparklers ignited. The rest were victims in two house fires caused when supposed ‘dud’ firecrackers were thrown in the trash and ignited it after smoldering for a long time.

Sorry, this is a public health concern? This is a disaster that the Federal Government needs to step in on? BTW, of those deaths, four of them would have happened even if fireworks were illegal (the kids that broke into a commercial fireworks trailer, and the boy who died from the sparklers, which would almost certainly still be legal).

How does this compare to other activities? In the same period:
[ul]
[li]Over 100,000 people were admitted to emergency rooms from injuries due to inline skating.[/li][li]Over 500,000 children were admitted to emergency rooms from bicyle injuries.[/li][li]Over 36,000 kids were admitted to emergency rooms from skateboard injuries.[/li][li]In 1990, four children were killed by running into soccer goalposts.[/li][li]On average, 58,000 children per year are admitted to emergency rooms from baseball-related injuries[/li][li]In September of this year alone, over 20,000 kids were admitted to emergency rooms from scooter-related injuries.[/li][li]In 1988, over 3 million people were admitted to emergency rooms for head injuries related to consumer products and activities (i.e. 12,700 head injuries from skiing, 169,000 head injuries from bicycling).[/li][li]Since 1973, 110 children have been killed by party balloons.[/li][li]In 1998, there were over 95,000 emergency room visits due to trampolines, and 6 people were killed.[/li][li]Thousands of chilren per year are admitted to emergency rooms due to bunk-bed related injuries.[/li][li]Over 200,000 children per year are admitted to emergency rooms from injuries related to playground equipment.[/li][li]On average, over 5,000 children per year are admitted to hospital for burns due to curling irons. Another 5,400 people were admitted to hospital for eye injuries from curling irons.[/li][li]Since 1984, over 275 children have been killed by 5-gallon buckets.[/li][li]In the last couple of years, there have been over 12,800 emergency room visits due to shopping carts.[/li][/ul]

I could go on and on, but hopefully this shows that the danger of fireworks is way overblown. After all, more people were seriously burned by their curling irons last year than were injured by fireworks, and the annual death rate from fireworks is about the same as that other dreaded killer of children, the 5-gallon bucket. In the 1980’s, more people per year were killed by their hair dryers than died from fireworks.

and how many items on your list can burn down my house?

I suppose inline skates could burn down your house, especially if they belong to Barbie.

Apparently, fireworks can’t either. I wasn’t able to find a SINGLE account of a kid burning down someone else’s house. There have been a number of house fires due to fireworks over the years, but in the home of the parents of the kid.

And the number of houses burned down by fireworks is orders of magnitude smaller than the number of houses burned down by many other legal products like irons, radios, and Christmas lights.

When you propose to ban something, supposedly there is a compelling public health need. Fireworks don’t cut it - they don’t even make the list. There were more kids injured on scooters in one month this year than were injured by fireworks in the last five years. By the end of this year, the number of scooter injuries will be greater than all the injuries caused by firecrackers in the history of the U.S.

Caveat: I have no particular view on the legality or illegality of fireworks, but I found Sam Stone’s statistics to be somewhat facile and misleading.

Sam

In your arguments, are you considering that fireworks are currently illegal in many (16) states, thereby eliminating or greatly reducing the chances for injury? The rest of the states are regulated by Federal law which permits only class C fireworks and prohibits many of the most dangerous kinds including cherry bombs and M-80’s. Statistics from before fireworks were banned in so many states might be more appropriate in determining whether fireworks should be controlled or made illegal.

I did a bit of hunting around the net and found the following:

A second critique of your argument is that fireworks usage peaks around July 4th and maybe New Year’s. So comparing 8500 emergency room admissions due to fireworks to 500,000 injuries due to bicycles is a bit ingenuous. Assume that firework usage is concentrated over maybe a week and that bicycle usage is evenly distributed over the nine warmer months of the year (36 weeks), the ratio would be more like 300,000 firework injuries to 500,000 bike injuries. If you compare the relative number of people using bikes to those using fireworks and the duration of usage, I’m pretty sure that you’ll find that bikes are far safer per time used. Same with pretty much everything else on your list – you are comparing injuries from items used regularly over the course of a year to those caused by items used over a very short period of time.

Your comment that many of the emergency room complaints for fireworks were probably relatively minor burns also needs justification – how many of them were mutilation, blindness, or serious burns?

I dunno, I used fireworks quite often in my youth during the 4th of July weekends. I never hurt myself and I imagine millions of others have used them without harming themselves or others.

Marc

Hey Sam, great set of stats.

  1. Out of curiosity, what’s the cite?
  2. It seems as though we need some sort of cost/benefit analysis. Both are difficult to measure, but maybe deaths per dollar of sales (or emergency room admittances per dollar of sales) might be an interesting (though by no means final) approach to the topic.

The fun factor is far outweighed by the danger.

Anybody who thinks differently should make it a point to visit one of the 22 Shriner’s hospitals for Children a couple of days after the the 4th of July.

I’m not saying that children should have unrestricted access to fireworks - I think there should be a minimum age to purchase them, with stores required to request ID just like with tobacco and alcohol. I just don’t like the idea of the government treating everybody like children.

Cite: The Consumer Products Safety Commission.