This. I like fireworks. I like a few bangs and booms. I like the small skyrockets. We’re out in the woods, and people drive up to New Hampshuh for the good stuff, which is illegal here.
Except that most of the past Fourths, one or more assholes comes back with a crate of aerials - big ones - and we get HOURS of house-shaking booms that terrify the dogs, are too deafening to withstand outdoors, and make normal conversation impossible indoors.
I keep wishing for an especially big boom followed by agonizing screams. (Well, no, I don’t. But some squeals of pain would be nice.)
IDK what happened to all the fireworks shows the cities or communities used to put on at the local colleges, handled by experts. You didn’t even have to go; you could see them from your driveway or elsewhere. Now I don’t even know where you can see any in L.A. County except at the Hollywood Bowl.
I read the OP as saying that the illegality of fireworks plus lax enforcement has actually made things worse than when they weren’t illegal at all. That, because it’s all illegal, there’s too much to enforce, so the actual bad stuff doesn’t get dealt with. I can see the logic there.
But everyone else just seems to be talking about getting the laws enforced, so maybe I misinterpreted. It reads as if the first part of the OP isn’t there.
I grew up in California and everything not safe and sane was illegal. So my friends and I built a cannon and would make black powder for about a month before the 4th and then we’d spend the night setting it off. As we got older we moved on to making out own bottle rockets until we blew out some of our neighbor’s windows.
Generally, I think the regulations need to be changed to an enforceable level. For instance, when we had fire bans in Colorado over 4th of July a couple of years ago I heard nothing because everyone was afraid of both the fine and setting fire to the neighborhood. In the same neighborhood last year two neighbors brought out mortars and had a duel. It was cool.
As a non-veteran sufferer of PTSD, this time of year is awful. For me it’s not “oh it sounds like gunshots” but the constant barrage of sudden, loud noise. My body reacts in panic mode to sudden changes and takes longer to calm down than non-PTSD sufferers. So I’m on high alert for several days, never mind that even if I didn’t have PTSD, the noise is annoying and happens all night long (and I believe is illegal where I am).
If I go to see a sanctioned firework display, I’m totally fine. I know the noise is coming. Drifting off to sleep at 1 am and hear BANG BANG BANG BANG is sheer terror.
The best I can hope for is that it’s really fucking hot and I have the loud AC unit running to dull the sounds. Rain only delays the inevitable.
Plus the little dirtbags who lit them off last year at my local park left all their debris. Nothing like being kept up all night and then having to step over garbage the next day. We were also in a significant drought, so risking setting everything on fire was just the cherry on top.
Fireworks are illegal in Massachusetts, but legal in much of New Hampshire, just to the north. There are firework stores all along the border in NH, just waiting to sell to Bay Staters (Massachusettsians) just itching for fireworks. And the police keep an eye on people buying them and trying to take them across the border.
Of course, all of this has been going on for years. But this year I’ve noticed that the NH firework sellers have put up billboards in Massachusetts. In fact, they’ve gone as far as to make TV commercials for them, and have bought time on Massachusetts TV stations to advertise their goods.
My city has a ban on all aerial fireworks. Just outside of town is an Indian casino with 40 or so fireworks stands. The skies of my town will be all lit up starting this weekend through the 4th.
And three kids are injured from illegal fireworks and idiotic parents:
I did indeed stay in a hotel on the nights of July 3 and 4. It’s right next to a freeway but that was just white noise. I slept very well.
In the meantime, my neighbors reported to me that it was the loudest and the worst it’s ever been in our 'hood. Explosions everywhere. Illegal shit shooting way up in the air–the kind you’re supposed to watch at the Rose Bowl, Hollywood Bowl, or other controlled venue.
And the cops? Who knows? They’re notorious here for not showing up for things like this, but god forbid you leave one bit of your car’s tire touching your yard, or your trash barrels are too “visible from the street.” Then they come running to write tickets.
When we lived in Florida the law stated that most fireworks were illegal unless you were using them for agricultural purposes. So each July we’d dutifully sign a form saying we were just scaring the crows away from our corn before loading up our trunk with mortars.
Where we live now they are illegal but people shoot them off on the 4th and New Years Eve. There may be a few on days other than that, but it’s hard to pick them out from people shooting tannerite targets which they love to do around here. Part of the fun of living in an area that’s part rural and part suburban.
This is where I live. Of course, once it got darker, it was like a war zone until midnight.
The tribes make a ton of money every year. And The Wife and I don’t have to spend a penny on fireworks, because thousands of people spend many thousands of dollars providing them for us free.
(OK, I did buy a string of Black Cats that I took off the string. But they’re only for discouraging a certain raccoon from coming onto the deck.)
In Florida, everything bigger than a snake or sparkler is banned for use by residents - except for agricultural use. So if you sign a waiver saying you promise you are only going to use your 500 kiloton AirSquisher to scare birds off your wheat field, you can buy whatever you want. In Florida.
ETA: Pixel Dent already posted pretty much the same thing. Whoops.
