I set off fireworks as a child under the supervision of two firefighters (my dad and uncle).
None of us kids did anything boneheaded with fireworks in our older teen years.
Yes, when I later worked in an ER, I saw many injuries on July 4 from firecrackers. I also saw them from riding motorcycles wearing tank tops, shorts, and flip flops (bad idea, much gravel removal, huge road rash), and from people riding in the back of a pickup truck, and from people using BBQ grills.
Watching pretty colours going “bang” in the sky and setting them off yourself are two very different things.
Guy Fawkes Night was one of my favourite nights of the year as a kid in New Zealand. We don’t have it in Queensland and I just don’t find watching coloured explosions in the sky set to popular music that enthralling, to be honest.
Teenage Martini Enfield would have been all over the “head to the country and don’t do anything stupid; we’re trusting you to be sensible” thing.
They are best when they are big enough and you are close enough to literally feel the low-frequency “whump” vibrating through your chest cavity.
My parents “sent me to the country” every summer to a relative’s dairy farm from ages 12-17.
In between milking cows, cleaning the barn, baling hay and straw, and so on my cousin and I built gunpowder cannons, pipe bombs, “balloon bombs” filled with acetylene and oxygen, model rockets with homemade napalm in the nose cone, etc, etc. How I didn’t blow off an arm or leg or start a wildfire I’ll never know. Worst injury was flashing off my eyebrows a couple of times.
I’m never sending my kids to the country! (Well, if you exclude that we already live there)
People drive and ride in cars a hell of a lot more than they use fireworks.
You can use fireworks with a great degree of confidence in your safety if you are not a complete and utter imbecile.
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Watching pretty colours going “bang” in the sky and setting them off yourself are two very different things.
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I agree, but you know what? You can’t always get what you want.
If the children are so uncontrollable that they absolutely cannot be trusted to not set off fireworks one would perhaps be well advised to get some really cool fireworks and teach the children how to use them safely. Best of both worlds.
RickJay is correct to make note of the frequency with which people use fireworks, vs how often they driver or are a passenger in a vehicle.
Beyond that, what negative consequences follow if you don’t set off fireworks yourself on the 4th of July? None. On the other hand, what happens if you don’t drive/ride in a car? Well, unless everything you need is within walking/biking/subway/train distance of your home, you would be unable to attend school, hold a job, grocery shop, visit the doctor, see friends, vote, and countless other activities.
When I was a kid we did our own fireworks but there were strict rules. A designated ignition area, one person lighting at a time, all spent fireworks go in the water bucket, etc. And no one got hurt. As an adult I live someplace where personal fireworks are illegal. So last year I headed out to the country where my cousin lives so that I could blow things up on July 4th. Obviously people do injure themselves with fireworks and since I’m working July 1st, 3rd and the night of the 4th I will no doubt see a few this year. But in my experience most of them are doing something stupid enough to earn an injury, like holding the fireworks in their hand while they light it.
In summary: personal fireworks are fun but inherently risky. Common sense can mitigate but not eliminate that risk. Even though I have direct personal knowledge of injuries due to fireworks I find them fun enough that I play with them anyway on those years when I’m not working the July 4th holiday.
pendgwen, ER doc
Absolutely.
Which is why springboards and diving boards have essentially been banished from pools across the country.
Sort-of, yes. Not closely regulated, but at least monitored by an adult. Someone who can step in and settle rules disputes and stop fights and provide a tiny amount of simple first aid. That would be nice. Not reality, but nice.
Within a decade, professional sports would die out due to lack of amateurs who have gained enough skill to go pro…
No parent who’s worth the sweat required to conceive a kid is eager to see his/her offspring injured. And sending a kid off to a rural area to play with fireworks isn’t going to make the activity appreciably safer. It will, however, allow the kid to do that activity in a place where it’s legal rather than illegal.
Is that option better than keeping the kid at home and telling him/her that he/she can only view the professional displays? I think that depends on the kid; I think each parent needs to know each kid well enough to predict the kid’s propensity for fireworks fascination and defiance of authority.
Thus, it’s not a question we can answer and our opinions aren’t relevant. YOU gotta know your kid, ZPG, and proceed accordingly.
–G!
Keep on pummeling away on that straw man of yours. Nobody here on this thread did or will claim that fireworks have no risk whatsoever and no accidents will happen.
What you aren’t reporting is the large majority of the time when people use fireworks and nothing bad happens. If you were posting links about black people who commit crimes to claim all black people were criminals, you would (rightly) be called a racist because the majority of black people–the ones not commuting crimes–don’t make the news. Just as you don’t see thousands of news reports of “people used fireworks–nothing bad happened.”
Why you gotta be a fireworks racist?
I disagree with your assessment. Fireworks are dangerous if mishandled. A better example might be that many people drive after a few drinks, and usually nothing bad happens. We report on the one guy who drove into a tree, but ignore the hundreds who made it home safe the same evening.
We will certainly see many more accidents with fireworks before Wednesday. No one is arguing for a fireworks ban. But the whole “kids will be kids” attitude doesn’t help to lower the risk. Knowing and respecting the real dangers might.
I agree completely. Growing up in NZ, my parents drilled into us that fireworks were literal explosives so we had to be very, very fucking careful with them. Having said that, we had an awesome time every Guy Fawkes night and I lots of fond memories with my family setting off roman candles, skyrockets, and all sorts of other colourful display firework things that would probably get one on a watchlist now.
Sending your teenagers juuuuust over the border into Dogpatch County with a ute tray full of fireworks, a crate of matches and a cheery wave is a terrible idea. Going with them (or ensuring they’re properly supervised) and giving them the opportunity to let off fireworks in that environment is a way better idea, and also creates the opportunity for a fun family experience and chance to connect with said teenagers too.
If you’re ok with the kids lighting fireworks and your only concern is getting in trouble with the cops, then yes, I would think sending them someplace where it’s legal seems like a good idea. Is this really a question?
As I live in the country, I say nope, keep your kids and their fireworks away from my horses and dogs.
StG
I live in the country. My dogs are very unhappy tonight. The pops started before dusk
Florida, Washington, Michigan, Nebraska, Maryland…
Be safe, everyone.
Trazadone for all the dogs at 7 pm.
Everyone is happy.
I am not going to advocate anyone breaking the law but in 20 years I have yet to see anyone busted for illegal fireworks. Just saying.
Yeah, July 4th is special. I have a friend who was born on the Fourth of July. She threw a huge party one year, which got a little out of hand. Around 3 am there were still fireworks being set off, and someone called the cops. I went out to the street to talk with them, I promised to shut down the festivities, and thanked them profusely.
Then the birthday girl’s father came running out to the street, extremely drunk and high, screaming that he was a taxpayer and the cops were fucking fascist pigs. He wanted to fight them. I tried to control him, at one point getting him in a headlock and dragging him through the yard. It was like COPS meets WRESTLE MANIA.
The police car drove away slowly.
Most places I’ve read about, fireworks laws are state laws, not necessarily municipal. Thus if they are illegal in the city, they are most likely just as illegal in the country.
As someone else that lives rural, last night for about an hour after sundown was a steady rumble of fireworks. All the way from bottle rockets launched next to my chair to those that sounded like an approaching storm over the next hill. My Lab either sits with his head in my lap or lays inside the house on his pillow.