(Europeans would avoid areas Americans were ensconced in during the first two world wars because they would shoot at everything- it was impossible to even say hi)
I loved playing with fireworks as a kid, and surprisingly have all appendages and senses intact, I even considered pyro as a job - so I definitely get the appeal.
I just think it's time that we left it to the professionals. Unless you are engaging in science or physics, I don't see the value in letting them off yourself.
It's also weird that America's birthday is celebrated using a Chinese invention.
Ban all fireworks and replace the "professional" shows with drone shows. If you are of sound mind (i.e not a "freedom loving" conservative), you understand the effects fireworks have on animals, and also the fact that you can't opt out of the noise is kinda ridiculous.
I concur, this would be good for developing cheap drone warfare capabilities. I mean, I love loud explosions and the sound of freedom because I'm not a wuss, but we need to get our drone game on China's level.
That would unironically be an amazing festival activity. A drone lightshow open to public participation where the different colors are tied to swarms engaged in a battle royale.
I also can't wait for the return of traditional blood sport events with bipedal robots as the contenders (but I digress).
freedom loving Democratic socialist here, this stance is very St Thomas Aquinas of you. let people continue to do the things you did without pulling up the ladder behind you. it's just for a night or two, the animals will live.
Everything needs to have a reason. Fireworks don't have a good reason, even ones that are professionally done. Just because its tradition doesn't mean it should be auto accepted.
If there is actual harm being done, i.e reason to ban them, then sure.
In the case of video games, I ironically agree on ban for kids on video games with online multiplayer. Kids should be forced to socialize in person in way greater ration that their online time to see that online personas are not real
In the case of sex before marriage, the opposite is probably true.
No, everything does not need to have a reason! "Just because" or "I just wanted to" do not inherently make the activity useless, nor mean that it should be discontinued.
If an activity is harmful is some way, but not beneficial in any other way (just because one "likes" it doesn't count"), the reasons to ban it outweigh the reasons to keep it
Yes, because what I was doing was objectively dangerous. Dueling used to be a commonly accepted practice, yes even killing - pity that ladder was pulled up! What about the children's chemistry sets that included uranium, mercury, and cyanide?
I think consensual duels should still be legal. Numerous states have laws about mutual combat where it is perfectly legal to beat the fuck out of each other.
The uranium wasn’t really dangerous, unless you swallowed it. Common U-238 has a half-life of about 4.5 billion years, so it’s not actually very radioactive. The most dangerous thing about it is its toxicity as a heavy metal, but plenty of other elements of a chemistry set are at least as dangerous.
Maybe leaving it to professionals would make more sense, but the majority of people aren’t in favor of it. I’m not even in favor of it and I had a couple fireworks bursting right outside my balcony last night. I was on the balcony and a ducked, though I would have been fine if I didn’t. Maybe require a brief safety training before purchasing? I’m not sure exactly what is going to reduce stupid behavior with explosives.
Yeah not sure why that changed, when I was a kid you could only get sparklers and small stuff that stayed on the ground. Today I could get everything for a near-professional show if I wanted to spend the money.
When I was a kid you could get actual m80's that were like a quarter stick of dynamite. Now you can only get little firecrackers that don't even blow up little green army men.
It's really dependent on your state laws. My state allows fireworks, so you can get most things but they are very limited in size and explosive content.
What it amounts to is that most cities/counties don't enforce their existing laws in this area because people would have a shit fit, and they would arrest so many people that it's kind of impossible.
Something something banning things doesn't really work to do anything but make criminals out of every day people.
M80s were more like 1/8th of a stick, I think. My uncle bought quarter sticks of dynamite one time. Wow. Quite a bit bigger and louder than an M80, and M80s were LOUD! My dad's cousin blew off most of his thumb and parts of several fingers with one. It was old, and it had a flash fuse. He was planning to toss it, but it went off instantly. (Don't hold fireworks when you are lighting them.)
A couple of years ago my brother got some flat triangles from a guy on the side of the road. First thing I've seen in years that was like an M80. We put a flat soccer ball over one, and it went 50 feet in the air. Very fun.
> actual m80's that were like a quarter stick of dynamite
Not even close.
A military M80 [0] is ~5g of flash powder, an inconsequential amount of low-explosive albeit enough to seriously injure yourself. The consumer "M80" are even weaker. These are used to simulate real explosions by the military.
The smallest standardized military demolition charge contains ~110g of TNT, in a similar small cylindrical format. There are multiple orders of magnitude difference in power between an M80 and these demolition charges.
A "quarter stick of dynamite" isn't a standard thing. But if it was, it would probably come in around 50g of TNT equivalent.
You could sure make decent explosives with OTC fireworks though - in the early 90s we would buy hundreds of those whistling fireworks, hammer them, cut the bottoms off, and then fill various bottles with all the powder. We made a shockwave with one of our makeshift bombs and decided we should probably stop after that.
The old school whistling fireworks were often based on picrate chemistry. Picrates famously have the ability when burned to hover between normally deflagration and true detonation; the whistling is a side effect of this. One of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history (see below) was a picrate explosion. These aren’t used anymore for safety reasons; they don’t have a great stability profile and picrates are true high-explosives.
Over the years they have found alternatives for and phased out most high-explosives used in fireworks. Many high-explosives will just deflagrate/burn but can spontaneously detonate with considerable power if the conditions are right, which makes them dangerous.
Have advances in explosives, fuses and quality control made fireworks safer in the last 40 years?
Or perhaps the safety improvements are offset by sellers now offering bigger fireworks (either because those are now actually safe and both buyers and sellers are more comfortable with them, or just because of a general hedonic improvement).
Or perhaps they are safer for their users, but worse for starting fires or interfering with low-flying aircraft.
Either way I would be interested in reading more about this, something more nuanced than "fireworks dangerous". At the least it's a counterpoint to what happened with illegal drugs which seem to have become more dangerous as a result of regulation and bans.
I think the improvements in consumer fireworks safety has been incremental. The fuses are more reliable, they’ve reduced the use of mercury and other heavy metals in pyrotechnics, and they’ve moved toward more stable chemistries. That said, I think regulation is marginal at best so who knows what a random firework will actually do. There are also practical constraints on the kinds of chemistries that make good fireworks e.g. you don’t want potential high-explosives to be something you can buy over-the-counter by the kilo.
There is a parallel in military explosives research. For example, the US military is slowly moving toward “insensitive munitions” which use explosive chemistries that are nearly impossible to detonate accidentally due to fire or impact. This originated in nuclear weapons research but has spread to other weapon systems.
Fireworks are intrinsically dangerous in the hands of incompetence, ignorance, or stupidity. No amount of engineering can solve that problem unfortunately.
> Today I could get everything for a near-professional show if I wanted to spend the money.
Not unless you're purchasing on the black market or (illegally) manufacturing it yourself.† The professional stuff is substantially larger than anything sold on the consumer market.
† Which is surprisingly trivial to do BTW but please be extremely cautious and very thoroughly master the underlying theory if you decide to go that route.
Being homemade is (almost) never in and of itself a reason. A lack of knowledge or judgment certainly can be. However often the motivation for DIY is to circumvent regulations to go big but of course one of the primary reasons for such regulations is that the associated consequences when things go wrong are dire. The story could well have turned out the same even if the item had been purchased from a reputable vendor. There's a very good reason the professional shows use barges or large fields and set up a huge exclusion zone around them.
Yep. I volunteered for a real fireworks show in California once. The size of the mortars was… so much bigger than the stuff I was used to seeing people get at fireworks shops.
Along with the reminder from the safety coordinator that each firework was capable of completely talking your arm or leg off. The “consumer” grade fireworks aren’t capable of that, although they’re still dangerous.
Did you move? There are huge differences between states in what’s available, all the way from “just sparklers and other tiny stuff that doesn’t fly” up to “anything that doesn’t require an explosives license”, and within states areas near cities often restrict fireworks sales.
When I was a kid growing up in Iowa in the 90s, my friends and I would hold Roman candles and bottle rockets in our hands and try to shoot them at each other. We're lucky we didn't get seriously injured, but it was all fun and games back then as long as you didn't tell your parents.
Same here, but Florida and Alabama. If I weren't in California I'd let my kids do the same, except eye protection would be mandatory, and ear plugs if I wanted to be really cautious.
Small bottle rockets (e.g. black cats) can hurt like hell if they hit you, or explode in your hand, but aside from (very slight) fire risk and injuring an eye, nothing permanent. But that's an amazing way for kids to learn about safety. A black cat exploding in your hand makes you feel like you almost blew your finger off, but that means, at least for the average kid, you won't be flippant around anything bigger. It's like letting kids monkey around and fall and hurt themselves; if they don't learn through pain and close-calls they can't learn to identify and judge risk consistently.
Personally, I think it's highly irresponsible for people to setoff the medium-sized and larger rockets in a city environment, like they do in SF, where I live. If you set off enough rockets you learn things often go sideways, literally and figuratively. That's a significant permanent injury hazard. You also know that they're a fire risk, especially when they don't properly explode at height and the burning metals immediately come in contact with anything. OTOH, city kids just don't have an opportunity to play with this stuff, and that's sad. Maybe in an ideal world we'd open up city parks for the day for shooting small rockets, and then crack down elsewhere.
The worst I've ever hurt myself was with a standard sparkler, and that was as an adult. I still have the scar from when I accidentally burned my wrist bending over to grab something and not paying attention to how I was holding the sparkler.
Rather than regulate fireworks out of existence wouldn't it be better to fix the problem at the root? Why do we permit such fire prone housing to be built just to save a few dollars?
The root problem is drunk people lighting off a bunch of rocket-propelled explosives, actually. Even if the houses were fireproof concrete bunkers, they'd still be starting wildfires in the grass/brush/trees. (And of course, it's more than "a few dollars.")
> Why do we permit such fire prone housing to be built just to save a few dollars.
I know you didn’t mean it, but this question isn’t a question. It’s a statement formed as a question. It’s a judgement. It’s not a curiosity legitimately asking why.
There are so many good reasons why houses in the US are built the way they are. Some of which are…
1. Concrete/Brick houses retain heat and are often harder to cool. They also don’t insulate well. US Houses have been built as a means of controlling moisture, humidity, and cooling efficiently.
2. Stick built houses cost less to repair. Brick/Concrete houses require much more demolition to repair, rebuild, or change. While replacing a load bearing wall in a stick house can be done easily, concrete and brick require the entire wall to be torn down.
3. Humidity, Moisture, and Wind matter. When moisture gets into concrete and brick then freezes it can cause huge structural cracks. Whereas in stick houses, it’s not as big a deal. I had a house with a raised driveway and a walkout basement. The basement and driveway had to be completely demolished due to moisture cracks. If the entire house was concrete it would have been a write off.
4. Soil composition matters. In some areas the soil is not capable of holding the weight of all the concrete and brick. Causing structure issues later and endangering folks.
Modern building codes today in most places are pretty solid. They require 2x6 framing, they require testing of the airways in the house to ensure proper air leaking/sealing. They require the structure of the house be built with specific bolts. They require the framing to be done in a way that resists wind sheer and twisting.
The US Building codes have been revised consistently over time. This started with the nuclear bomb testing in the 40s and onward. They built houses, and then bombed them to find out how to make them better. We’ve learned from Tornados, Hurricanes, and more. These all have resulted in major improvements to building houses.
Today in the US we have no shortage of housing methods. We have SIP Framing, ICF Concrete Framing, Recycled ICF, Modular designs, etc. Most still go with stick built because it’s the better option for the majority.
I lived in a 2x4 house in TN that was built poorly and improperly. I spent 200k in 4 years repairing that house. Now I live in a 2x6 built slab house. This house was built by a luxury builder properly.
The difference between the two is astonishing. The TN House couldn’t go less than 82 degrees when it was hot and humid. The luxury house is in Vegas, it can be 50 degrees inside when it’s 120 outside. You can cut costs on stick built, but you can also make some of the best houses with it.
No, it really was a question. Please don't inject your own biases and assumptions when interpreting my words.
It seems that you've invented a false dichotomy where the only options are wood frame or brick and concrete and then assumed me to be advocating for the latter. I was not. There are a variety of ways in which wood frame structures can be made less prone to external sources of fire. At least a few jurisdictions in california have adopted some of these methods into code as of late.
My question implied judgment to an extent, sure, but it was also genuine in that I truly do not understand why we as a society are not more proactive about these things. It isn't limited to fires either. In the face of all sorts of natural disasters we consistently optimize regulations for cost rather than safety. Consider the myriad examples of structures being built in flood prone areas.
Since we're on a wild tangent here, the US house construction is also held back by the sheer momentum of wood-framed buildings.
For example, aerated autoclaved concrete has better structural strength, doesn't need additional insulation, completely non-combustible, and is cheaper to build. Yet approximately nobody in the US uses it.
> For example, aerated autoclaved concrete has better structural strength, doesn't need additional insulation, completely non-combustible, and is cheaper to build.
Apparently it ages out though and becomes unsafe when it does, resulting in a scandal in the UK:
"There is nothing fundamentally wrong with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) as building material or system. Many buildings from the 60s and 70s built from many materials are now having problems due to inadequate maintenance, and old age."
I'm not exactly sure what this is supposed to mean. I've never heard of this problem with regular brick or concrete structures.
Not really. AAC was used to build floors without enough of additional reinforcement, and this is a bad idea. Just like regular concrete, it's weak in tension and is even more brittle.
If you use it to build walls and then use regular concrete or wood to build floors, it has none of these issues.
It's an amazing material, very light and it can be cut with a special handsaw on site.
> Despite strict fireworks bans in many cities, including Oakland, they’ve become a year-round nuisance in the Bay Area. And one of the primary ways they’re spread is through the enterprising but illegal work of small-time dealers who obtain the contraband from licensed shops outside of California, sneak it into the state, and then sell hundreds and even thousands of pounds of explosives out of homes, vehicles, storage units, and even corner stores.
In a lot of states, Indian reservations can also sell them. And they’re basically completely unregulated. It’s illegal to bring them or set them off into other towns but people do it. Hundreds of people. And tens of thousands have to be repeatedly woken up because of their selfishness.
When I was in North Carolina on a trip the chap I was visiting said I'd know if I was crossing over to South Carolina when I saw all the fireworks shops as it was illegal to sell them in NC but not SC. Funny to see.
(No idea what the actual rules are, just repeating what he told me)
The Kentucky/Indiana border has always been that way in my lifetime. Kentucky restricts fireworks sales to just "sparklers" and Indiana has much more latitude in what they can sell. The thing about Indiana fireworks stores that has long confused me has been how many of them are gas stations. That always seemed like a problematic pairing to me.
Same in the NY/NJ/PA tri-state. Ahead of the 4th a NY state trooper sits in the parking lot of the Phantom Fireworks in Matamoras, presumably calling in NY plates for their buddy to go pull over.
We just took the back roads home instead of the highway.
Off topic but I went to a local town’s medium-sized professional fireworks show this weekend and there were none of those small flash really loud fireworks that shake you to the core. Not even in the grand finale. Oddly they are what I enjoy most. Have they gone out of fashion or do they mess too much with pets?
I miss those too. I remember as a kid one display that shot a bunch of really bright white flare-like fireworks that were blinding and hung in the sky followed by dozens of those small but loud ones and it was memorable.
That's what I know them as too. We used to go out to a family friend's farm for a fireworks show he'd put on every 4th, and he'd always have a bunch of those interspersed. They used to be my favorite growing up, because of the anticipation between when it launched and when it would explode.
Not a big fan of my neighbors having them and launching them in town though lol
There are such a wide variety of fireworks available now there is probably less need for those specifically. The show I was at still had enough loud booms to set off dozens of cars' alarms repeatedly during the twenty minutes.
Am I the only one who thinks the risks are worth the reward? People are celebrating, kids are having fun. Yes a few people blow their hands off, but are we going to remove everything, one by one, in the name of safety?
Come on, it’s not a choice between complete anarchy and complete restriction.
It is very, very fair for society to be like “hm I think X activity is easy to abuse in a way that hurts innocent bystanders,” and then limits the activity to people with licenses and training or things like that.
Like no, it’s totally not cool to give a free pass to people who are putting other people’s lives and homes at risk. How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid?
I don’t care if it’s just your own life at risk. But you’re essentially saying that people should be free to play around with explosive devices in dense city neighborhoods. Fuck no, it’s fucking concerning to have an explosion rattle your windows. The people most likely to do this shit in the streets have no clue what they’re doing.
You are arguing against a straw man. It was never claimed or even implied that society can't or shouldn't regulate activities that cause harm. The cost benefit tradeoff in this specific instance was called into question and the broader implications of a consistent application of the same bar across all of society was inquired about.
> you’re essentially saying that people should be free to play around with explosive devices in dense city neighborhoods. Fuck no, it’s fucking concerning to have an explosion rattle your windows.
This is nothing more than emotional grandstanding. You could construct similar rants against a canister of gas or bottle of starter fluid. Obviously how you use the thing is important.
Lest you miss my point or think I miss the mark there are video footage of clueless people nearly killing themselves and others through entirely avoidable mishaps with gasoline abound.
The question is the amount of knowledge and judgment required, the likelihood of mishap, and the size of the consequences when one inevitably happens. Regulation needs to balance these things against utility and personal freedom.
Large? When fireworks within the ATF limits for unlicensed individuals are used according to manufacturer instructions they explode on the ground or in the air in a way that does not endanger the surrounding structures. Of course you can't safely light them off in a narrow alley between three story buildings. Anyone doing that (or similarly foolish things) was behaving recklessly to begin with.
> How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid?
Probably the same way I'd feel if it burned down because my neighbor did some other stupid thing, like drive into it with a truck or try stealing electricity. There would be many feelings probably, but none of them would be "trucks/DIY should be illegal".
Stealing electricity is already illegal. Driving a truck into your home could be a genuine accident, but it's more likely that alcohol was involved first (which is illegal with driving).
Where I live, it's already illegal to shoot fireworks in the city limits, people still do that. Banning sales and importation is the next logical step.
What if there was one day a year where it was expected for people to speed through your neighborhood at 20 over the speed limit, which ends up with a bunch of people driving into houses with their vehicles?
It's not really the fireworks that is the issue. It's the alcohol, drugs, and overall attitude towards a dangerous activity. It's a bit different than a random mishap or whatnot.
> What if there was one day a year where it was expected for people to speed through your neighborhood at 20 over the speed limit, which ends up with a bunch of people driving into houses with their vehicles?
You mean All Saints Day (1st of November)? No, thousands of drunk drivers taking dozens of innocent lives and hurting hundreds more, year after year like a clockwork, is still not a reason to ban trucks, or any other car type. Or to cancel All Saints Day, if that's what you're implying.
> Like no, it’s totally not cool to give a free pass to people who are putting other people’s lives and homes at risk. How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid?
We quite literally have a long and rich tradition of laws to handle exactly this.
>How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid?
Burning your neighbors house down is already illegal. You and they should already have insurance. House fires in human dwellings have been a risk since we started building houses next to other houses.
The issue is that we (and I mean worldwide) have gone from legalism as a method of settling disputes and advertising penalties for destructive behavior, to outlawing risk entirely.
The crux of the matter is that no one stops to point out where the line is. Laws will come in to penalise low probability risks, people make these arguments "wont someone think of the children" and then lawmakers turn on to even lower probability risks.
If you had even a benchmark, "more probable than x is outlawed" people would be more understanding. And its not a slippery slope argument, because the slope seems to be the point and without a line the destination appears to be all possible risk.
>Rules do not necessarily reduce freedom, they can in fact even provide more freedom on the longer term, when the system finds a new balance.
The kind of rules being peddled by the kind of people who peddle rules in a fireworks thread are almost certainly the exact opposite of the kind that direct things at a freer equilibrium.
It's not that we can't have rules. It's that we can't have shortsighted people with bad morals writing tules.
>Rules do not necessarily reduce freedom, they can in fact even provide more freedom on the longer term
Back to my point above that there are laws and regulations that are fine, and then theres the pre-crime nonsense trying to reduce risk to zero that are being peddled today.
I’m with you. I shoot off small fireworks for my kids and my immediate neighbor on our quiet street, and we have a neighbor a few doors down who invariably calls the cops. This has been going on since the 2000s when she moved in. If I’m fined, I just pay it.
I am fine with the professional fireworks shows but people setting fireworks inside residential areas, in all hours of night, for weeks during summer is just people being massive douchebags.
Nope, completely with you on this. The logical conclusion of banning everything dangerous is everything in existence being banned. There are many things people do that I think are dumb or dangerous but that doesn't mean I think they should be banned from doing them.
I have a beautiful memory from a summer night long ago, in Barceloneta on the evening of the summer solstice—the festival of Saint Joan [0]. I didn’t know it was coming, which was its own special sort of astonishment… walked in to eat dinner, walked out to a mountain of furniture on fire in the intersection, air thick with gunpowder smoke, bands of youths firing Roman candles at one other…
The specific image that comes to mind, though—I remember dozens upon dozens of ambulances lined up at the ready along the waterfront, their crews hanging out enjoying the madness until they would be called upon.
Having been raised in pretty cautious circles, that image struck me: the powers-that-be knew some proportion of bad stuff would happen. I figured that meant they’d “just make a law against it.” Instead of trying to stop it, though, they focused on preparedness and timely response.
Since then, of course, I’ve learned that The Law has a lot less raw power than I’d imagined against tradition and popular will…
Since then I’ve accepted as creed that the best and most human parts of life reach their most salient in the moments of paradox between principles. “Avoid safety risks” is correct, “living fully requires accepting risks” is also correct.
IDK what has been going on but people in my area seem to be getting their hands on professional-level fireworks that sound like bombs going off. It used to be the roman candles and the fountains and a gentle background noise around the neighborhood but now it's insane.
There are plenty of parts of the world where people are free to enjoy themselves but also considerate of others.
Fireworks affects others: fire danger, noise, lack of post-celebration cleanup. I've seen trash and unlit fireworks left in school yards that had kids coming in for summer school.
If people were more respectful with fireworks, this wouldn't be a polarizing opinion. Yet, here we are.
Many fireworks are designed to explode at altitude. The biggest risk is probably if the firework is ingested into an engine (also a major risk for bird strikes).
I recently moved to the St. Louis area for a software job at Boeing. I'm actually in a nice quiet neighborhood in St. Charles right under the flight path for planes landing at Lambert Field.
The fireworks last night were insane. All around me folks were setting off commercial grade fireworks bursting hundreds of feet in the air. The house was shaking, my dogs were freaking out, one of them had a seizure. The air was filled with smoke and smelled of gun powder. It was one of the craziest things I've ever experienced.
Next year I'll definitely be planning an out-of-town vacation for the 4th to some location with firework restrictions.
I don't know what the planes were doing; I didn't hear or see any landing with all the smoke and noise.
It's insane to me how much dogs are supposedly loved by such a large chunk of the pop, and yet people proceed to go apeshit with fireworks fully knowing how badly this affects them.
My guess because we just read of the seizure stories online but 95% of dogs are ok with it. Mine is. There's a limit to dealing with edge cases that most people have.
We have three dogs of different breeds and ages, none of them handle fireworks well. They don't have seizures, but one of them turns into a quivering, shaking mess and the other two try to hide under couches and beds. I wish they were okay with it, but my wife and I have to plan our 4th around the dogs because of how they react.
I've had two dogs. One didn't like fireworks but would just turn his head towards the noise then walk over to the nearest human, and the other completely ignored them.
However! The first was a Labrador cross and the second was full lab. Breeds intended for use as gun dogs might not react to gunpowder and explosions as much.
My dog, now passed after a long and happy life, loved fireworks deeply. It was his favorite day of the year. He would chase and pretend to bite, bark, and run around with joy.
That study doesn't say "freak out". It says 83% ever showed "any fear" of fireworks, which is a huge variation. My doesn't like going outside when there are fireworks, but the sound of rain freaks him out way more.
Our dog is not ok with fireworks or gunshots. He either goes into the basement (normally off limits) or into the bedroom (mostly off limits) when he hears them.
However it also took him quite a few years to get over his fear of thunder.
I think he'll survive even though he'd be included in the 83%.
>setting off commercial grade fireworks bursting hundreds of feet in the air. The house was shaking,
I'm in Bellevue, WA, and experienced house-shaking fireworks for the first time this year. I was inside with my cats - theyve always been more or less fine with fireworks, just hiding under the bed - but this year's house shakers were on another level. When the first one went off, I thought an accident had happened and a cache of fireworks had exploded. Scared the hell outta me. Then there were about 5 more like that spread across the next 5 hours. 0% of pets would be ok with these ones, I guarantee it. Idk if theyre new this year or what but Ill be doing the same as OP next year.
Like 80% of dog owners treat dogs like possessions. When I say "like possessions" I mean they abuse them by physical means or by locking them into small apartments and not meeting the animals basic needs. It's wild how people trap dogs into small city/suburb boxes and then 'train' them to be good(break them). I stand by 80% if you account for global numbers and not just western/developed nations.
In much of the developed world it's weirdly mandatory to have a dog or cat. The way folks treat them is so messed up. Then these folks turn around and claim they love animals. It's nonsense. Most people don't need a pet nor do they treat them like an animal lover would.
But words have no meaning nowadays. Everyone is everything they want to be.
The degradation of canine genetics and behavior to the point where loud noises cause seizures is pretty absurd. I love dogs but I grew up around working dogs. City people have pushed dog breeding to the point where the desirable dog is riddled with some pretty extreme codependency and anxiety that they mistake for affection and companionship. The poor animals spending their lives in a few hundred square feet and completely alone for a large majority of their lives kinda sickens me.
I agree, but luckily my terrier apparently doesn't give a poo about fireworks. Probably nobody jad thrown fireworks at him yet. My inlaws' country dog (also a fox terrier mix with the same temperament) growls at people, especially teens, smelling of powder and barks at fireworks and motorbikes. Good thing he's not a Malinois to nip those teens and chase the motorbikes. So it'a more of a nature vs. nurture thing.
Given that most dogs are adopted from shelters, dog behavior is often a reflection of early upbringing. The current owner can train and teach their dog, but some behaviors and fears set in fairly early on.
Moreover, many dogs are beaten or worse when they’re young, and undoing that fear and trauma is a lifelong (for the dog) struggle.
Thus, dog behavior is far from “strictly a reflection of their [current] owner.”
Fireworks are a traumatic and disruptive intrusion on their environment akin to a temporary war. We (humans) already do enough traumatic and disruptive intrusions on the lives of wild animals, that doing this wholly unnecessary “just for funsies” thing is particularly cruel.
It’s rich how you’ve decided to call out “city people” as being responsible for the situation rather than the trash individuals who set off illegal fireworks.
Jeez, just imagine a ballistic missile hitting your neighbour's house, with no indication or alert coming ahead. I would bet a good 50€ that you'd be freaking the shit out.
> Getting your dog used to loud and sudden noises can make them more relaxed and less reactive when the fireworks outside get going. There’s a good range of CDs and playlists of fireworks, storms, and loud noises available, and playing these can really help your dog desensitise to the noise.
> Start by playing the sounds at a low volume, and as your dog gets used to it you can slowly increase the volume over a period of time so that they become used to the noise. This can work especially well with young dogs and puppies, and can let you nip any problems in the bud before they even arise.
Most dogs in my neighborhood are ok with them. My own dog loves them. I try to keep him inside only because I think it might be bad for his hearing if he gets too close.
Beyond basic temperament I wonder if owner training is implicated, as more people become annoyed by fireworks they don’t expose the dog to them at a young age.
Just as you don't need to be a vet to know the difference between a dog and a cat.
I own a dog and it's common sense that a dog is a reflection of the owner, and when you have a dog you know every other owner and dog in the neighborhood (and the ones that use fireworks have dogs that don't mind fireworks). If you don't enjoy fireworks then you tend not to introduce the dog to fireworks at a young age, and the dog will tend to be afraid of them. Look up "optimal age to train a dog".
I mean I think most people would agree it's completely irresponsible and borderline absuive to own a dog and stay in nearly any city in the USA during the 4th.
People rightfully blame the owners it's not like this is a surprise for them.....
> Next year I'll definitely be planning an out-of-town vacation for the 4th to some location with firework restrictions
Fireworks are not legal to shoot in pretty much any city. They are not legal in my city. That did not stop them from being used. In fact, they are going off around me the night after too
As another STL resident, fireworks are illegal everywhere in the County (not sure if St. Charles as well, but probably), and our local muni PD even sent out multiple warnings about prosecution.
But our inner ring suburb was similarly full of smoke last night and the smell of many amateur fireworks shows.
Only a few in my neighborhood, but they were quite the production. I remember firing a few bottle rockets as a kid, but these were definitely a few steps above that! Sounded like mini mortars, maybe those boxes with a bunch of shells timed to go after each other.
40-50 years ago, fireworks were largely unregulated across the US and were a major part of the 4th of July cultural experience. Dangerous, slightly reckless, and incredibly fun. I have fond memories of this as a child. It is a big part of American culture, like turkey on Thanksgiving.
Every country has rules that exist but which are culturally unenforceable. Today, fireworks are outlawed in much of the US because safety. Americans refuse to comply across such a broad cross-section of people that it is effectively unenforceable. The cultural contradiction is too strong, people won’t give up their traditions for mere safety reasons. Even the nominal enforcers don’t believe in it. No one is motivated to actually enforce it.
This may be unsatisfying for many people but the impossibility of enforcing fireworks bans in the US captures an important component of the American zeitgeist. It is annoying for me sometimes but I recognize that this reflects an aspect of American culture that you can’t just erase.
You're right but in my experience in Washington state - Park rangers, forest fire marshals, and reservation police will all rigorously enforce the bans in places that are prone to wild fires. The local community won't have much sympathy either. People get how dumb that is. You also see bans enforced in very well off communities that basically have their own police force too. It's fascinating how these micro-cultures all self-regulate.
> Even the nominal enforcers don’t believe in it. No one is motivated to actually enforce it.
Case in point, the ATC on this very flight said something along the lines of "Thanks for the report, I'll pass it on, but I doubt they'll be able to do something about it"...
In Texas, you have to go outside of the city limits. South Carolina you can get them year round. There are other states that are legal year round, but I don't remember them off the top of my head.
Imagine thinking you are saying something positive about American “culture” with your comment. Wow.
You would have sounded more true to it by just writing “MMMURICA, AMIRIGHT!?!?”
Can only speak to my experience here in Washington, but 40 years ago you still needed to go to the reservation for the fun stuff. Even basic small firecrackers were outlawed in my county.
I realize as a Californian we may not count as "American" in this particular zeitgeist stereotype. But FWIW we have a firework ban in Nevada County that is widely respected. There are very few violations and the law is actively enforced.
The difference is we are in a no-joke dangerous fire situation and everyone recognizes it. Most people know better than to set off incendiary explosives in a forest. Anyone who shot off illegal fireworks would immediately be shamed and censured by their neighbors. I guess it's a form of commune-ism.
I saw a video of fireworks over LA from the window of a descending airplane in the last several years and it was pretty beautiful. They were everywhere.
I genuinely don't understand how this has never been a news headline throughout my entire life until now. We have closed air-spaces. We know when fireworks will be deployed. The article didn't specify any reason this would be different, but I would think there is a reasonable explanation. Maybe this happens all the time and I just haven't noticed.
I'd argue the conclusion is wrong. The premise, that preventing natural burning and continuing to develop in areas that need to burn to stay healthy is extremely well supported.
I grew up in southern CA, in a dry pine forest. I can assure you the children I knew traded and set off fireworks. We were all envious of the families who brought them back from Mexico — they had the best stuff.
I guess rules-followers assumed we were all doing as they did.
I too live in Nevada County. While I largely agree with the claim that most people recognize and respect the safety implications, most years I still see (or hear) illegal fireworks. It’s clearly the odd individual doing it and not the majority of people, but the asymmetric risk they impose is a real bummer and I would love to see more/better enforcement of the restrictions on such individuals.
There was a similar cultural shift in the Portland OR area after fireworks caused the massive Eagle Creek fire 9 years ago. This is the first year that it seems like firework activity returned to the pre-fire levels.
I find it really amusing to see people carrying their assault rifles to grocery stores as if they are expecting a zombie outbreak or an alien invasion anytime now.
There are some states where you can still buy them year round. Holiday or not.
South Carolina comes to mind because I was there a few months ago. They have giant stores all over the state.
As a Canadian, the earliest memories I have of driving into the United States were seeing the giant "fireworks" billboards lining the interstate. I know it depends on the state, but it's one of those things you notice as an outsider.
Given American policing culture, I really don't buy that the police can't show up and start arresting you for public endangerment. They may not want to, but that is different
The "trick" I've seen is just doing it with enough space to be safe and with property owner permission. The cops are likely caring about safety not the letter of culturally unenforceable law on July 4th. Problem is this don't work in the suburbs and cities, it's just to dense.
> this reflects an aspect of American culture that you can’t just erase.
Yeah, and that’s the problem. A whole country full of people belligerent enough to say “fuck you” to anyone who tells them “hey you probably shouldn’t blow your hand off”. What a wonderful place.
Americans are always funny,... being proud they can have one day a year where they can breath a highly toxic air created by others or are forced not to ventilate their house and spend their day with a >2000ppm CO2 headache/drowsiness (or from the other PoV, proud they can inflict this on fellow Americans, even better).
"And if you don't like this, you can just git out!"
All the while they're stripped of dignity in the eyes of people abroad, by their aggressive/genocidal government's foreign policy actions.
Aren’t people on this website supposed to be like, smart? If I wanted someone to tell me “if you don’t like it leave it” as if it’s an actual position worth arguing I could just go to the bar.
It's funny because I read the parent comment and thought that was actually kinda cool.
Lots of things we do are really stupid from a purely productivity, health or safety perspective.
American's were probably wrong to oppose alcohol prohibition. They probably should ban motorbikes. Fireworks should be largely banned to members of the public. Pizza should be illegal. Etc..
Part of what makes a country a place you'd want to live is the fact they don't create an excess of rules and regulations to optimise for what's best on paper, but allow people to do stupid things and allow them to live the life they want to live and take the risks they want to take where risks are not too excessive.
Commercial fireworks are dangerous, but not that dangerous. It's inadvisable that someone would use them without proper safety training, and it probably makes sense to have some rules around selling them to try to limit use, but in reality this just isn't a big problem.
Obviously people who live on flight paths should be more careful.
The threat of getting sued only motivates people with something to lose. If we let lawsuits largely drive what the rules are, how do you govern people who are so poor they are "judgement-proof."
True, but this is how it actually works, in the US.
Lots of stuff is not anywhere close to ideal, but it is what it is.
people refusing to understand that, doesn't help. Change usually comes from people who first, understand and accept, then they know what to do, to actually make change, as opposed to tilting at windmills.
Comes in handy when the government agents are rounding up your neighbors. Except when they direct that energy at the neighbors instead of the government agents.
Fireworks on holidays were also a huge part of Chinese culture, but they've been banned now in cities and the ban seems to be mostly effective.
China even has the same issue as the US, where they aren't banned at the national level so you can still drive two hours and buy them legally. And whatever your stereotypes, China has plenty of scofflaws who aren't going to give something up just because the government tells them to, and its police are, very broadly, less heavy-handed as the US
I suspect banning firework sales in the US would have a significant impact.
China's a police state where the government has absolute power and isn't limited even slightly by the constitution, with a disarmed population, it's completely incomparable.
We have seen the “checks and balances” were held together by decorum alone. We are now seeing what happens if decorum is absent and government officials regularly lie and mislead the public and other government officials without facing any consequences.
China goes up and down on this. In Beijing in 2002, fireworks were pretty muted, there were some but not many. In 2008, completely different, they even burned the facade off of that CCTV cultural center.
Note that Beijing is where the central government is the strongest, although Beijingers aren’t as law abiding as residents of south Chinese cities are. Still, they were selling fireworks (when they were allowed) inside the third ring, you didn’t have to go out to Hebei to get them.
As for what the policy is now, I couldnt tell you, and wouldn’t assume it was one way or the other.
Yea, people have tried for decades to ban deepavali fireworks here in india with zero effect. It's simply not enforceable. The police themselves burst.
Back around 1982, fireworks were a big no in my neighborhood.
My friend across the street had some bottle rockets and he decided to shoot one off in the middle of the street. We didn't have a bottle to put it in to light it, so we wedged it between two bricks. He lit it and a split second before it went off, it tilted to point directly down the street. It fired off blazing down the middle of the road. At the same time a cop car just happened to turn the corner and that damn thing popped on the hood of the cop car.
We scattered like ants. My friend that lit it ran inside, I hid in his garage under his moms car and the other two hauled ass home.
Well the cop parked out front and knocked on his door. His dad answered and they spent which felt like an hour (probably 10-15 minutes) talking about what happened. He got in big trouble and grounded. I stayed in the garage until the smoke cleared, then ran home. I didn't see him for at least a week.
Your post reminded me about that incident. They were regulated in Fort Worth Texas 44 years ago. I haven't thought about that day in years! LOL!
Thanks for the fun memory.
That’s what I remember too. Fireworks in the city limits was a no-no. People would do it but you were risking a visit from the local police car. In my neighborhood (OakCliff in Dallas) the police have completely given up, people cruise Jefferson Ave shooting AR15s out of the back of their trucks every Sunday night. July 4th and New Years is completely out of control, it’s going to take a house getting burned down or some other horrible tragedy to change it.
We were setting off fireworks in the street in the middle of the afternoon (cause you'd buy a bunch and gradually deploy in the days leading up to the event). We shot off a rocket, which was one of mine. There were fire trucks shortly after putting out a blaze in an open lot. 1980s, I was <10 years, my older brother and his friend were pretty sure we caused it.
I have no way to know if we started that fire, but regulations exist for a reason and people who live in at-risk areas understand that they could lose their homes.
In the mid-90s I had a brief but enjoyable hobby of model rocketry. I guess the #1 obstacle in this pastime is finding a safe launch site.
I had assembled a gorgeous SR-71 Blackbird rocket. I took it to a vast lawn space at Warren College, UCSD, on a quiet weekend, and set it on its maiden voyage. The very lopsided SR-71 immediately went horizontal and landed softly within a swimming pool fence where I had no access.
Some time later, I chose the neighborhood public school yard on a weekend. Nevertheless, the preparations drew a curious crowd of unaccompanied minor children who were younger than me. I told them to be careful and stay clear, and set off the rocket. By the time its parachute deployed, a security guard was driving his car around the field to meet us all at the landing site and give us all a stern warning.
So I abandoned that hobby forever and found less explosive things to tinker with. This week I grabbed two boxes of glow-sticks at the hardware store, and had myself a very glowy 4th.
Yea, I think OP is wearing rose-colored glasses. I'm 50 and I don't remember any time in my life when anything bigger than sparklers or tiny firecrackers were legal. To my young eyes, they've always been illegal. The differences now are 1. a more belligerent and careless population and 2. police enforcement. You can read a lot of comments here from places (mostly CA) where people care to do the right thing and enforcement is actually happening, and lo and behold it's at least helping. Fireworks bans are not any more "culturally unenforceable" than masking during COVID was.
It helps when your local culture is respectful, cooperative, and intelligent enough to understand why we don't light fires when every tree and blade of grass within 200 miles is dry as a bone. It hurts when your local culture is "Fuck everyone else, I'm going to do what I want!"
I'm in my late 40s. I grew up on an island in Washington state. Truly commercial-grade fireworks (the kind that professionals would launch for an audience of thousands) were banned by that time, but plenty of fireworks that would be categorized as "commercial-grade" today were sold publicly by multiple vendors every year.
I love fireworks now, but my first memory of them was terrifying. I would have been about 3 to 5. My parents drove our VW bus to a nearby beach to watch the local display. It was total madness. Teenagers threw explosive fireworks onto and underneath our car.
Even a lot of the smaller home-use fireworks back then had hilariously unsafe behaviour. I remember in particular one called something like "Saturn Missile Battery". It was a box that launched a 10x10 grid of 100 whistling, finless plastic rockets (each about 4-5cm x 5-6mm), with each rocket exploding when their propellant ran out. Because they had no stabilization, they would fly in all directions, change direction in flight, etc. When my dad set it off, one of them literally flew right over our heads into the house and exploded in the basement.
My experience is that outside of Seattle, enforcement of fireworks restrictions is pretty lax. For example, if one watches the professional display in Tacoma, one will also see most of Dash Point / Browns Point continuously lit up by fireworks that are unambiguously well outside the legal restrictions.
I agree that a lot of people are reckless, and it's just a matter of time before it causes a high-profile disaster somewhere in the state. But I also agree with the parent comment that it's such an ingrained part of American culture that it would be very hard to change - at least until there's a local disaster that gives people a visceral feeling for the danger.
This is the truth! Don't come to woke europe. All countries are scrambling all over themselves to ban everything fun in the name of the climaaaaate. I stopped celebrating new years in western europe due to the incredibly boring laser shows. I go to eastern europe instead. Much more fireworks, better party and more beautiful women!
As Eastern European - please don't go to Eastern Europe. Keep your bullshit with yourself, we don't want Americans who will then wake up that we aren't their "Conservative, Christian paradise".
I don't know what it's like now but that sounds like Europe in the 1980s. I remember going there from a country that restricted anything fancier than a sparkler and being amazed at all the cool things you could get. Blowing holes in snow forts with the larger Chinabölller was particularly fun.
The police erased fireworks explosions in my neighborhood in the Bay Area.
Two years ago, I heard thousands of explosions in the month of July, same as every year. Then last year, the police posted signs reminding people that fireworks are illegal and that they would begin issuing fines to violators. The number of explosions was about 30% of usual (i.e., still many hundreds of explosions). This year I've heard exactly one explosion (on July 03).
I unambiguously welcome this change. You mention safety, but fireworks are also hard on neighbors with PTSD.
Is littering also in your opinion "an important component of the American zeitgeist"?
At least for where I grew up, you seem to have history backwards. 40-50 years ago fireworks were largely outlawed - the best I could play with as a kid were smokebombs, snaps, sparklers, and small fountains. Now fireworks are pretty much completely legal, even municipal grade cannons. This is why they are going off all over the place on July 4th.
I don't agree. I think it's a choice that each area has made between law enforcement and local governance. Regarding the St. Louis area, it really depends on which jurisdiction you are in. St. Louis County has over 90 municipalities. The neighboring counties are also fragmented but to a lesser degree. There are areas (mostly more rural) where it is legal and loud, some where it's not legal but enforcement is lacking, and there are quiet areas in which I assume enforcement does happen.
Because fireworks are not usually homemade, enforcing bans is pretty easily done by cracking down on retailers who illegally sell them. They are easy to find (have to advertise) and have a lot to lose by breaking commerce laws. Notably, cannabis grows naturally in many climates in the US (so retail not strictly necessary) and we still ban it.
IIRC our state long prohibited the kind of fireworks that go into the air (roman candles, etc.) and only allowed sparklers and similar ground-effect pyrotechnics. Of course, the odd person would drive hundreds of miles with fireworks in their trunk, but overall the ban was fairly effective.
> No one is motivated to actually enforce it.
All that said, I am a fan of removing laws that continue to exist only as a pretext for targeting disfavored groups. A lot of the rot in the country is downstream of us not really being a nation of laws.
> This may be unsatisfying for many people but the impossibility of enforcing fireworks bans in the US captures an important component of the American zeitgeist. It is annoying for me sometimes but I recognize that this reflects an aspect of American culture that you can’t just erase.
I've taken to describing this aspect of Americana as "the fatal need to have a pretty good time", after the Minced Mockingbird post[0].
STL is famous for having a large number of folks shooting guns into the air on New Years. So much so that there are warnings to not go outside. Stay safe.
A few years ago, on July 4th one of my mom's dogs freaked out, somehow managed to escape, and got hit by a car before my mom found her. She loved that dog, regularly attending nose work competitions with it.
One of your pets getting a seizure must be harrowing for both you and the dog.
My female Weimaraner was terrified of thunderstorms and fireworks. Once, she managed to squeeze herself under my Mini Cooper. I didn't know at the time that panic vests were a thing. The breed is a gun dog ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I forget how we managed to get her out from under there, but it took a bit. My Akita doesn't care, he checks the balcony, yawns, and back to his toys. But he is a afraid of air balloons and blow up Christmas Santas. Go figure.
My opinion about how people use fireworks changed when I adopted a dog from a shelter and discovered how deeply traumatizing booms are to her. From chatting with other dog owners this seems to be common. If my neighbors could see the extent fireworks affect the same friendly, silly pup their children love greeting everyday, they would probably think twice about how they use them. We can manage the night of the 4th by traveling out of town, but the 1-2 weeks of random booms that follow the holiday are really tough for us.
You certainly have a higher opinion of neighbors than I do. As far as any action that negatively intrudes on others, it seems the most likely responses are either that they are allowed to do what they want and you need to deal with it, or to do it even more now that they know it bothers you as punishment for you daring to ask.
I used to love the tradition of lighting fireworks but I think the way people have been using them has changed in the last decade. Everything seems to transform into a war zone and some people do incredibly dangerous things.
Its become a dick waggling contest. It will be quiet all night and then one person sets something off. Some other person "well ill show them who has better booms" and gets a bigger one, sets it off. Next thing you know its 30 minutes of booms and pops culminating in the largest boom possible, its goddamn irritatibg
Yeah first 4th of July as a dog owner. He did relatively OK inside but we had a hell of a time taking him out for a walk. Every time we thought everyone was done blowing their loads someone else refueled and things started over again.
People might say you just made this up for internet points. But this is real, this is an actual thing that happens to dogs (and other pets) when exposed to prolong fireworks noise!
Yeah, it really happened. But to be fair the little dog in question is prone to seizures and all the booming certainly set this one off. She was fine after things calmed down around midnight.
I moved across states a few years ago. In the old neighborhood, people would be drunk and lighting that crap off for hours and hours. Completely moronic and thoughtless.
Here, it is illegal. First offense is a fine, second offense is jail.
I spent a year in Germany and Oh God do Germans shoot off fireworks for the New Year. Most of the time Germans live up to the stereotype of neat, clean, quiet, polite but the next day there is a mess of firework wrappers all over the street.
I don't know fireworks that well, but these appeared to be the commercial type, with a large lift-charge that lights the sky up with a lightning style flash followed by a sky burst and the house-shaking boom of the sort I usually associate with shows put on the city or whatnot. I had two of these "shows" going on just north of me and one to the south.
And I have a pretty good idea of heights around here. I mentioned I work at Boeing on flying things so I track the ones that fly over me. They're usually about 1000 to 1500 ft. AGL on approach when they go over my house and about 200 knots. Southwest has the most flights into and out of St. Louis so it's usually a 737, and those have a wingspan of just over 100 feet on the newer models.
So yeah, I'd say these fireworks were going up at least 300 feet.
On Reddit last year, I found a link to a City of Phoenix dashboard that monitors all the county-wide emergency dispatch calls that are not suppressed for privacy/security reasons. I watch it throughout the day and night, especially on holidays like this one.
I counted upwards of 23 fires on the map at any single point in time, between sunset and 11pm. Most of those calls indicated either debris fires, or Dumpster fires, but there were also roof fires and vehicle fires, including one police-involved car accident.
I stayed inside all weekend after attending church on Saturday evening. The Air Force flyover was not visible in my area. I immensely enjoyed the celebrations on live streaming. And singing my heart out, creating new playlists.
I see way too many trashy people setting off commercial grade illegal fireworks in the middle of crowded cities and neighborhoods. It is incredibly disruptive and damaging. Vets are traumatized. Dogs are traumatized. And sleep deprived parents have to repeatedly put babies back to sleep. It is insane that police do not enforce laws against these criminals.
> It is insane that police do not enforce laws against these criminals.
Not that I've known a ton of people who work for local police departments, but the majority of the ones I have known are exactly the type of people who are likely to partake in illegal residential fireworks around the 4th of July.
I have three children under three and think the fireworks are great.
My eldest was very hard to put to sleep last year and the year before that, but it also never occurred to me to think people shouldn’t set off their fireworks on my account.
(And I’ve never set off commercial fireworks in the city myself, I guess this is just a difference in mentality around nuisance.)
This is more of an issue with operating during the week before and after 4th of July in Chicago. As I'm writing fireworks are going off.
Fireworks (display) kinds are illegal in Illinois and there are absolutely no fireworks shot off the before and after 4th of july. Nothing happens nothing to see here.
Last night some neighbors set off some illegal fireworks a few blocks from our house. My husband was out on a walk when the paramedics arrived because one of them had burned off half his face and another his arm.
What is sad is that a few irresponsible people are always what end up ruining something that most can manage to do without endangering others. Growing up it was a yearly thing where my family would go somewhere safe away from public and set off fireworks.
Fireworks are a lot of fun. Sure not everyone's thing but many enjoy them and can manage to use basic safety and not endanger anyone.
I just can't believe a firework going off right at an airport was not intentional. I believe someone was most likely thinking "I'm gonna lite this off right by a plane for all to see my awesome show!". Not trying to hit the jet but rather just look at me people isn't this awesome!? No it is not.
This is the type of thing that ends up getting fireworks banned or more controlled for the rest of us.
Reminds me of the idiot who flew his drone over an active forest fire while crews were actively fighting it causing the helicopters or water bombers to have to disengage the fire until the drone was gone. Then drone rules get tightened for the average guy just wanting to have fun responsibly.
When I lived in Beijing (10+ years ago), CNY would be constant fire crackers and fire works (but more bang bang than flashy lights) from 9PM to 3 or 4 AM. And I don’t mean just constant fire works, I mean what it must have felt like being bombed by multiple fleets of bombers in WW2. You should just hear constantly fire work shrapnel hitting your window.
I flew in once on CNY and could see constant flashing all below during our descent into Beijing capital. The whole country side looked like it was exploding, and the villages were nestled on mountains or in mountain valleys to great effect.
My uncle's house is under the landing path for Midway Airport. His whole house shakes when a plane comes by. From his front yard you can easily read the numbers on the plane's body.
Parts of the fence surrounding the airport is across the street from a neighborhood. You can sit and watch planes landing not too far above your head. I'm not surprised a consumer grade firework was able to hit one of those planes.
Here in Salt Lake City, a prolonged drought has made it a tinderbox. Home fireworks are prohibited, and there's signage up all over the place warning of the danger. And yet, the firework stands popped up in grocery store parking lots like they do every year, and people lined up. Bananas.
Luckily no new fires started around here, but we also have the local "Pioneer Day" on July 24 that starts up a fresh round of pyrotechnics.
As a European reading these comments I never would have expected fireworks in the US to regulated at all. In my country you can buy whatever you want. The most popular time to use them is at New Year, and even in supermarkets they have popup stalls selling then. If you go out at midnight you can see fireworks in every direction.
I live in a capital city thats surrounded by forest. I've never heard of any forest fires caused by them, but I guess it's because winter - we often have snow that time of year.
It definately has a big effect on air quality though, the smell of gunpowder lingers until the next day. We are far from the sea so there is little wind that time of year, and the cold temperatures cause the smoke to stay close to the ground (same issue with wood burning stoves which are common in older houses).
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 80.5 ms ] thread(Europeans would avoid areas Americans were ensconced in during the first two world wars because they would shoot at everything- it was impossible to even say hi)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/190th_Fighter_Squadron,_Blues_...
It's hardly outside the realm of possibility here.
I just think it's time that we left it to the professionals. Unless you are engaging in science or physics, I don't see the value in letting them off yourself.
It's also weird that America's birthday is celebrated using a Chinese invention.
Not really. America is an amalgamation of all the countries and cultures that emigrated to it. It’s one of the best things about it.
Barking dogs cause far more irritation than the nightly fireworks in June and July.
Plus, the animals would not have to suffer.
I also can't wait for the return of traditional blood sport events with bipedal robots as the contenders (but I digress).
In the case of video games, I ironically agree on ban for kids on video games with online multiplayer. Kids should be forced to socialize in person in way greater ration that their online time to see that online personas are not real
In the case of sex before marriage, the opposite is probably true.
Microbits of plastic, atmospheric smoke, splintered pieces of wood, wildfires.
Pulling up the ladder behind you, eh? So nice of you to think of the children.
There was at least a lot less "illegal fireworks" when people had the drive two states away to buy them.
It's really dependent on your state laws. My state allows fireworks, so you can get most things but they are very limited in size and explosive content.
What it amounts to is that most cities/counties don't enforce their existing laws in this area because people would have a shit fit, and they would arrest so many people that it's kind of impossible.
Something something banning things doesn't really work to do anything but make criminals out of every day people.
A couple of years ago my brother got some flat triangles from a guy on the side of the road. First thing I've seen in years that was like an M80. We put a flat soccer ball over one, and it went 50 feet in the air. Very fun.
Not even close.
A military M80 [0] is ~5g of flash powder, an inconsequential amount of low-explosive albeit enough to seriously injure yourself. The consumer "M80" are even weaker. These are used to simulate real explosions by the military.
The smallest standardized military demolition charge contains ~110g of TNT, in a similar small cylindrical format. There are multiple orders of magnitude difference in power between an M80 and these demolition charges.
A "quarter stick of dynamite" isn't a standard thing. But if it was, it would probably come in around 50g of TNT equivalent.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-80_(explosive)
Over the years they have found alternatives for and phased out most high-explosives used in fireworks. Many high-explosives will just deflagrate/burn but can spontaneously detonate with considerable power if the conditions are right, which makes them dangerous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion
Or perhaps the safety improvements are offset by sellers now offering bigger fireworks (either because those are now actually safe and both buyers and sellers are more comfortable with them, or just because of a general hedonic improvement).
Or perhaps they are safer for their users, but worse for starting fires or interfering with low-flying aircraft.
Either way I would be interested in reading more about this, something more nuanced than "fireworks dangerous". At the least it's a counterpoint to what happened with illegal drugs which seem to have become more dangerous as a result of regulation and bans.
There is a parallel in military explosives research. For example, the US military is slowly moving toward “insensitive munitions” which use explosive chemistries that are nearly impossible to detonate accidentally due to fire or impact. This originated in nuclear weapons research but has spread to other weapon systems.
Fireworks are intrinsically dangerous in the hands of incompetence, ignorance, or stupidity. No amount of engineering can solve that problem unfortunately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VaLtf_EIVQ
Primary = easy to activate, doesn't need an explosive initiator. High explosive = detonates rather than deflagrates.
And for bonus points, most flash powder is self-confining in very small quantities. Means a little pile of powder will detonate even if not enclosed.
Not unless you're purchasing on the black market or (illegally) manufacturing it yourself.† The professional stuff is substantially larger than anything sold on the consumer market.
† Which is surprisingly trivial to do BTW but please be extremely cautious and very thoroughly master the underlying theory if you decide to go that route.
I say this as somebody with a book on how to make them, but I've always been a bit too scared to try.
Along with the reminder from the safety coordinator that each firework was capable of completely talking your arm or leg off. The “consumer” grade fireworks aren’t capable of that, although they’re still dangerous.
Small bottle rockets (e.g. black cats) can hurt like hell if they hit you, or explode in your hand, but aside from (very slight) fire risk and injuring an eye, nothing permanent. But that's an amazing way for kids to learn about safety. A black cat exploding in your hand makes you feel like you almost blew your finger off, but that means, at least for the average kid, you won't be flippant around anything bigger. It's like letting kids monkey around and fall and hurt themselves; if they don't learn through pain and close-calls they can't learn to identify and judge risk consistently.
Personally, I think it's highly irresponsible for people to setoff the medium-sized and larger rockets in a city environment, like they do in SF, where I live. If you set off enough rockets you learn things often go sideways, literally and figuratively. That's a significant permanent injury hazard. You also know that they're a fire risk, especially when they don't properly explode at height and the burning metals immediately come in contact with anything. OTOH, city kids just don't have an opportunity to play with this stuff, and that's sad. Maybe in an ideal world we'd open up city parks for the day for shooting small rockets, and then crack down elsewhere.
The worst I've ever hurt myself was with a standard sparkler, and that was as an adult. I still have the scar from when I accidentally burned my wrist bending over to grab something and not paying attention to how I was holding the sparkler.
I know you didn’t mean it, but this question isn’t a question. It’s a statement formed as a question. It’s a judgement. It’s not a curiosity legitimately asking why.
There are so many good reasons why houses in the US are built the way they are. Some of which are…
1. Concrete/Brick houses retain heat and are often harder to cool. They also don’t insulate well. US Houses have been built as a means of controlling moisture, humidity, and cooling efficiently.
2. Stick built houses cost less to repair. Brick/Concrete houses require much more demolition to repair, rebuild, or change. While replacing a load bearing wall in a stick house can be done easily, concrete and brick require the entire wall to be torn down.
3. Humidity, Moisture, and Wind matter. When moisture gets into concrete and brick then freezes it can cause huge structural cracks. Whereas in stick houses, it’s not as big a deal. I had a house with a raised driveway and a walkout basement. The basement and driveway had to be completely demolished due to moisture cracks. If the entire house was concrete it would have been a write off.
4. Soil composition matters. In some areas the soil is not capable of holding the weight of all the concrete and brick. Causing structure issues later and endangering folks.
Modern building codes today in most places are pretty solid. They require 2x6 framing, they require testing of the airways in the house to ensure proper air leaking/sealing. They require the structure of the house be built with specific bolts. They require the framing to be done in a way that resists wind sheer and twisting.
The US Building codes have been revised consistently over time. This started with the nuclear bomb testing in the 40s and onward. They built houses, and then bombed them to find out how to make them better. We’ve learned from Tornados, Hurricanes, and more. These all have resulted in major improvements to building houses.
Today in the US we have no shortage of housing methods. We have SIP Framing, ICF Concrete Framing, Recycled ICF, Modular designs, etc. Most still go with stick built because it’s the better option for the majority.
I lived in a 2x4 house in TN that was built poorly and improperly. I spent 200k in 4 years repairing that house. Now I live in a 2x6 built slab house. This house was built by a luxury builder properly.
The difference between the two is astonishing. The TN House couldn’t go less than 82 degrees when it was hot and humid. The luxury house is in Vegas, it can be 50 degrees inside when it’s 120 outside. You can cut costs on stick built, but you can also make some of the best houses with it.
It seems that you've invented a false dichotomy where the only options are wood frame or brick and concrete and then assumed me to be advocating for the latter. I was not. There are a variety of ways in which wood frame structures can be made less prone to external sources of fire. At least a few jurisdictions in california have adopted some of these methods into code as of late.
My question implied judgment to an extent, sure, but it was also genuine in that I truly do not understand why we as a society are not more proactive about these things. It isn't limited to fires either. In the face of all sorts of natural disasters we consistently optimize regulations for cost rather than safety. Consider the myriad examples of structures being built in flood prone areas.
For example, aerated autoclaved concrete has better structural strength, doesn't need additional insulation, completely non-combustible, and is cheaper to build. Yet approximately nobody in the US uses it.
Apparently it ages out though and becomes unsafe when it does, resulting in a scandal in the UK:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-66686864
"There is nothing fundamentally wrong with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) as building material or system. Many buildings from the 60s and 70s built from many materials are now having problems due to inadequate maintenance, and old age."
I'm not exactly sure what this is supposed to mean. I've never heard of this problem with regular brick or concrete structures.
If you use it to build walls and then use regular concrete or wood to build floors, it has none of these issues.
It's an amazing material, very light and it can be cut with a special handsaw on site.
https://oaklandside.org/2026/07/01/illegal-fireworks-police-...
> Despite strict fireworks bans in many cities, including Oakland, they’ve become a year-round nuisance in the Bay Area. And one of the primary ways they’re spread is through the enterprising but illegal work of small-time dealers who obtain the contraband from licensed shops outside of California, sneak it into the state, and then sell hundreds and even thousands of pounds of explosives out of homes, vehicles, storage units, and even corner stores.
(No idea what the actual rules are, just repeating what he told me)
We just took the back roads home instead of the highway.
Not a big fan of my neighbors having them and launching them in town though lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Cup_Soccer_(pinball)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Tigers_(video_game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampage_(video_game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_2:_Judgment_Day_(ar...
It’s also the name of a district/neighborhood of San Diego which takes its name from Midway Drive, particularly where it intersects with Rosecrans St.
Okay, “Midway” is a lot of things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway
It is very, very fair for society to be like “hm I think X activity is easy to abuse in a way that hurts innocent bystanders,” and then limits the activity to people with licenses and training or things like that.
Like no, it’s totally not cool to give a free pass to people who are putting other people’s lives and homes at risk. How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid?
I don’t care if it’s just your own life at risk. But you’re essentially saying that people should be free to play around with explosive devices in dense city neighborhoods. Fuck no, it’s fucking concerning to have an explosion rattle your windows. The people most likely to do this shit in the streets have no clue what they’re doing.
> you’re essentially saying that people should be free to play around with explosive devices in dense city neighborhoods. Fuck no, it’s fucking concerning to have an explosion rattle your windows.
This is nothing more than emotional grandstanding. You could construct similar rants against a canister of gas or bottle of starter fluid. Obviously how you use the thing is important.
Lest you miss my point or think I miss the mark there are video footage of clueless people nearly killing themselves and others through entirely avoidable mishaps with gasoline abound.
The question is the amount of knowledge and judgment required, the likelihood of mishap, and the size of the consequences when one inevitably happens. Regulation needs to balance these things against utility and personal freedom.
Is there a way to use large fireworks in a residential neighborhood that isn’t “light them on fire to cause an explosion”?
Probably the same way I'd feel if it burned down because my neighbor did some other stupid thing, like drive into it with a truck or try stealing electricity. There would be many feelings probably, but none of them would be "trucks/DIY should be illegal".
So is shooting a house with fireworks. I'm against a general ban on doingelectrical work yourself, and against a general ban on fireworks.
It's not really the fireworks that is the issue. It's the alcohol, drugs, and overall attitude towards a dangerous activity. It's a bit different than a random mishap or whatnot.
You mean All Saints Day (1st of November)? No, thousands of drunk drivers taking dozens of innocent lives and hurting hundreds more, year after year like a clockwork, is still not a reason to ban trucks, or any other car type. Or to cancel All Saints Day, if that's what you're implying.
We quite literally have a long and rich tradition of laws to handle exactly this.
Burning your neighbors house down is already illegal. You and they should already have insurance. House fires in human dwellings have been a risk since we started building houses next to other houses.
The issue is that we (and I mean worldwide) have gone from legalism as a method of settling disputes and advertising penalties for destructive behavior, to outlawing risk entirely.
The crux of the matter is that no one stops to point out where the line is. Laws will come in to penalise low probability risks, people make these arguments "wont someone think of the children" and then lawmakers turn on to even lower probability risks.
If you had even a benchmark, "more probable than x is outlawed" people would be more understanding. And its not a slippery slope argument, because the slope seems to be the point and without a line the destination appears to be all possible risk.
I am gonna go ahead and assume theres no freedom you wouldn't give away for safety if the government justified it in the right way.
Rules do not necessarily reduce freedom, they can in fact even provide more freedom on the longer term, when the system finds a new balance.
The difficulty of course is to find the proper rules and evaluate these effects from current system state.
The kind of rules being peddled by the kind of people who peddle rules in a fireworks thread are almost certainly the exact opposite of the kind that direct things at a freer equilibrium.
It's not that we can't have rules. It's that we can't have shortsighted people with bad morals writing tules.
Back to my point above that there are laws and regulations that are fine, and then theres the pre-crime nonsense trying to reduce risk to zero that are being peddled today.
Does that really sound reasonable to you?
25,000 people die in my state every year, 10 in a day would be miraculously low.
On the evening of July 4, fine.
Setting off firecrackers in urban areas otherwise is simply antisocial behaviour and should be treated as such.
The specific image that comes to mind, though—I remember dozens upon dozens of ambulances lined up at the ready along the waterfront, their crews hanging out enjoying the madness until they would be called upon.
Having been raised in pretty cautious circles, that image struck me: the powers-that-be knew some proportion of bad stuff would happen. I figured that meant they’d “just make a law against it.” Instead of trying to stop it, though, they focused on preparedness and timely response.
Since then, of course, I’ve learned that The Law has a lot less raw power than I’d imagined against tradition and popular will…
Since then I’ve accepted as creed that the best and most human parts of life reach their most salient in the moments of paradox between principles. “Avoid safety risks” is correct, “living fully requires accepting risks” is also correct.
[0] https://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/events/sant-joan/...
You know, there are millions of ways having fun that endangers no others. Millions!
There are plenty of parts of the world where people are free to enjoy themselves but also considerate of others.
If people were more respectful with fireworks, this wouldn't be a polarizing opinion. Yet, here we are.
Not surprising, as a firework is designed to disintegrate and the outer surface of a plane is not flammable. Bird strikes are probably a higher risk.
The fireworks last night were insane. All around me folks were setting off commercial grade fireworks bursting hundreds of feet in the air. The house was shaking, my dogs were freaking out, one of them had a seizure. The air was filled with smoke and smelled of gun powder. It was one of the craziest things I've ever experienced.
Next year I'll definitely be planning an out-of-town vacation for the 4th to some location with firework restrictions.
I don't know what the planes were doing; I didn't hear or see any landing with all the smoke and noise.
It's insane to me how much dogs are supposedly loved by such a large chunk of the pop, and yet people proceed to go apeshit with fireworks fully knowing how badly this affects them.
Not saying this is how I feel or act though.
Though in my experience dogs that are ok with fireworks are the edge case.
However! The first was a Labrador cross and the second was full lab. Breeds intended for use as gun dogs might not react to gunpowder and explosions as much.
To be fair, I am quite certain he was an outlier.
95% of the dogs in your home are okay with it.
this study from Psychology Today finds that 83% of dogs freak out when they hear loud noises:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/canine-corner/202202...
However it also took him quite a few years to get over his fear of thunder.
I think he'll survive even though he'd be included in the 83%.
>setting off commercial grade fireworks bursting hundreds of feet in the air. The house was shaking,
I'm in Bellevue, WA, and experienced house-shaking fireworks for the first time this year. I was inside with my cats - theyve always been more or less fine with fireworks, just hiding under the bed - but this year's house shakers were on another level. When the first one went off, I thought an accident had happened and a cache of fireworks had exploded. Scared the hell outta me. Then there were about 5 more like that spread across the next 5 hours. 0% of pets would be ok with these ones, I guarantee it. Idk if theyre new this year or what but Ill be doing the same as OP next year.
Many combat veterans react to anything resembling gunfire and explosions. And you can add drone noise to that these days.
In much of the developed world it's weirdly mandatory to have a dog or cat. The way folks treat them is so messed up. Then these folks turn around and claim they love animals. It's nonsense. Most people don't need a pet nor do they treat them like an animal lover would.
But words have no meaning nowadays. Everyone is everything they want to be.
Moreover, many dogs are beaten or worse when they’re young, and undoing that fear and trauma is a lifelong (for the dog) struggle.
Thus, dog behavior is far from “strictly a reflection of their [current] owner.”
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-devastating-effects-o...
Fireworks are a traumatic and disruptive intrusion on their environment akin to a temporary war. We (humans) already do enough traumatic and disruptive intrusions on the lives of wild animals, that doing this wholly unnecessary “just for funsies” thing is particularly cruel.
It’s rich how you’ve decided to call out “city people” as being responsible for the situation rather than the trash individuals who set off illegal fireworks.
That seems a better option than expecting everyone else to change their behaviour because of a pet you chose.
> Getting your dog used to loud and sudden noises can make them more relaxed and less reactive when the fireworks outside get going. There’s a good range of CDs and playlists of fireworks, storms, and loud noises available, and playing these can really help your dog desensitise to the noise.
> Start by playing the sounds at a low volume, and as your dog gets used to it you can slowly increase the volume over a period of time so that they become used to the noise. This can work especially well with young dogs and puppies, and can let you nip any problems in the bud before they even arise.
I own a dog and it's common sense that a dog is a reflection of the owner, and when you have a dog you know every other owner and dog in the neighborhood (and the ones that use fireworks have dogs that don't mind fireworks). If you don't enjoy fireworks then you tend not to introduce the dog to fireworks at a young age, and the dog will tend to be afraid of them. Look up "optimal age to train a dog".
Most people just don’t care about anything but themselves. It’s disgusting me to no end.
People rightfully blame the owners it's not like this is a surprise for them.....
Fireworks are not legal to shoot in pretty much any city. They are not legal in my city. That did not stop them from being used. In fact, they are going off around me the night after too
Also the 2A wingnuts think banning fireworks is akin to gun control https://www.tully-weiss.com/blog/fireworks-and-the-second-am...
But our inner ring suburb was similarly full of smoke last night and the smell of many amateur fireworks shows.
Only a few in my neighborhood, but they were quite the production. I remember firing a few bottle rockets as a kid, but these were definitely a few steps above that! Sounded like mini mortars, maybe those boxes with a bunch of shells timed to go after each other.
Every country has rules that exist but which are culturally unenforceable. Today, fireworks are outlawed in much of the US because safety. Americans refuse to comply across such a broad cross-section of people that it is effectively unenforceable. The cultural contradiction is too strong, people won’t give up their traditions for mere safety reasons. Even the nominal enforcers don’t believe in it. No one is motivated to actually enforce it.
This may be unsatisfying for many people but the impossibility of enforcing fireworks bans in the US captures an important component of the American zeitgeist. It is annoying for me sometimes but I recognize that this reflects an aspect of American culture that you can’t just erase.
Case in point, the ATC on this very flight said something along the lines of "Thanks for the report, I'll pass it on, but I doubt they'll be able to do something about it"...
The difference is we are in a no-joke dangerous fire situation and everyone recognizes it. Most people know better than to set off incendiary explosives in a forest. Anyone who shot off illegal fireworks would immediately be shamed and censured by their neighbors. I guess it's a form of commune-ism.
I genuinely don't understand how this has never been a news headline throughout my entire life until now. We have closed air-spaces. We know when fireworks will be deployed. The article didn't specify any reason this would be different, but I would think there is a reasonable explanation. Maybe this happens all the time and I just haven't noticed.
Cali is fairly split between all shades of the socio-political spectrum (big difference bewteen Central valley and the coast, for example).
Greed and cultural narcissism is what you are seeing. It's a "gold rush" culture. It's been that way for a very long time.
I guess rules-followers assumed we were all doing as they did.
250 baby! (/s)
Hang on, fireworks are banned in the land of the free? But every kid should own an assault rifle?
He said the trick is to invite a couple of cops.
If you have a cop or two at the party, and, often, a volly firefighter running the sparks, it seems to be OK.
A few years ago, one of our neighbors was running one, and a mortar fired into his second story. It was a 5-alarm fire.
Yeah, and that’s the problem. A whole country full of people belligerent enough to say “fuck you” to anyone who tells them “hey you probably shouldn’t blow your hand off”. What a wonderful place.
"And if you don't like this, you can just git out!"
All the while they're stripped of dignity in the eyes of people abroad, by their aggressive/genocidal government's foreign policy actions.
Lots of things we do are really stupid from a purely productivity, health or safety perspective.
American's were probably wrong to oppose alcohol prohibition. They probably should ban motorbikes. Fireworks should be largely banned to members of the public. Pizza should be illegal. Etc..
Part of what makes a country a place you'd want to live is the fact they don't create an excess of rules and regulations to optimise for what's best on paper, but allow people to do stupid things and allow them to live the life they want to live and take the risks they want to take where risks are not too excessive.
Commercial fireworks are dangerous, but not that dangerous. It's inadvisable that someone would use them without proper safety training, and it probably makes sense to have some rules around selling them to try to limit use, but in reality this just isn't a big problem.
Obviously people who live on flight paths should be more careful.
When you can get sued, safety fences get put up, quite quickly.
America has very aggressive lawyers.
Lots of stuff is not anywhere close to ideal, but it is what it is.
people refusing to understand that, doesn't help. Change usually comes from people who first, understand and accept, then they know what to do, to actually make change, as opposed to tilting at windmills.
Now vs 80s and the 90s.
China even has the same issue as the US, where they aren't banned at the national level so you can still drive two hours and buy them legally. And whatever your stereotypes, China has plenty of scofflaws who aren't going to give something up just because the government tells them to, and its police are, very broadly, less heavy-handed as the US
I suspect banning firework sales in the US would have a significant impact.
Note that Beijing is where the central government is the strongest, although Beijingers aren’t as law abiding as residents of south Chinese cities are. Still, they were selling fireworks (when they were allowed) inside the third ring, you didn’t have to go out to Hebei to get them.
As for what the policy is now, I couldnt tell you, and wouldn’t assume it was one way or the other.
Well the cop parked out front and knocked on his door. His dad answered and they spent which felt like an hour (probably 10-15 minutes) talking about what happened. He got in big trouble and grounded. I stayed in the garage until the smoke cleared, then ran home. I didn't see him for at least a week.
Your post reminded me about that incident. They were regulated in Fort Worth Texas 44 years ago. I haven't thought about that day in years! LOL! Thanks for the fun memory.
I have no way to know if we started that fire, but regulations exist for a reason and people who live in at-risk areas understand that they could lose their homes.
I had assembled a gorgeous SR-71 Blackbird rocket. I took it to a vast lawn space at Warren College, UCSD, on a quiet weekend, and set it on its maiden voyage. The very lopsided SR-71 immediately went horizontal and landed softly within a swimming pool fence where I had no access.
Some time later, I chose the neighborhood public school yard on a weekend. Nevertheless, the preparations drew a curious crowd of unaccompanied minor children who were younger than me. I told them to be careful and stay clear, and set off the rocket. By the time its parachute deployed, a security guard was driving his car around the field to meet us all at the landing site and give us all a stern warning.
So I abandoned that hobby forever and found less explosive things to tinker with. This week I grabbed two boxes of glow-sticks at the hardware store, and had myself a very glowy 4th.
It helps when your local culture is respectful, cooperative, and intelligent enough to understand why we don't light fires when every tree and blade of grass within 200 miles is dry as a bone. It hurts when your local culture is "Fuck everyone else, I'm going to do what I want!"
I'm in my late 40s. I grew up on an island in Washington state. Truly commercial-grade fireworks (the kind that professionals would launch for an audience of thousands) were banned by that time, but plenty of fireworks that would be categorized as "commercial-grade" today were sold publicly by multiple vendors every year.
I love fireworks now, but my first memory of them was terrifying. I would have been about 3 to 5. My parents drove our VW bus to a nearby beach to watch the local display. It was total madness. Teenagers threw explosive fireworks onto and underneath our car.
Even a lot of the smaller home-use fireworks back then had hilariously unsafe behaviour. I remember in particular one called something like "Saturn Missile Battery". It was a box that launched a 10x10 grid of 100 whistling, finless plastic rockets (each about 4-5cm x 5-6mm), with each rocket exploding when their propellant ran out. Because they had no stabilization, they would fly in all directions, change direction in flight, etc. When my dad set it off, one of them literally flew right over our heads into the house and exploded in the basement.
My experience is that outside of Seattle, enforcement of fireworks restrictions is pretty lax. For example, if one watches the professional display in Tacoma, one will also see most of Dash Point / Browns Point continuously lit up by fireworks that are unambiguously well outside the legal restrictions.
I agree that a lot of people are reckless, and it's just a matter of time before it causes a high-profile disaster somewhere in the state. But I also agree with the parent comment that it's such an ingrained part of American culture that it would be very hard to change - at least until there's a local disaster that gives people a visceral feeling for the danger.
Two years ago, I heard thousands of explosions in the month of July, same as every year. Then last year, the police posted signs reminding people that fireworks are illegal and that they would begin issuing fines to violators. The number of explosions was about 30% of usual (i.e., still many hundreds of explosions). This year I've heard exactly one explosion (on July 03).
I unambiguously welcome this change. You mention safety, but fireworks are also hard on neighbors with PTSD.
Is littering also in your opinion "an important component of the American zeitgeist"?
Bicycle theft?
Because fireworks are not usually homemade, enforcing bans is pretty easily done by cracking down on retailers who illegally sell them. They are easy to find (have to advertise) and have a lot to lose by breaking commerce laws. Notably, cannabis grows naturally in many climates in the US (so retail not strictly necessary) and we still ban it.
IIRC our state long prohibited the kind of fireworks that go into the air (roman candles, etc.) and only allowed sparklers and similar ground-effect pyrotechnics. Of course, the odd person would drive hundreds of miles with fireworks in their trunk, but overall the ban was fairly effective.
> No one is motivated to actually enforce it.
All that said, I am a fan of removing laws that continue to exist only as a pretext for targeting disfavored groups. A lot of the rot in the country is downstream of us not really being a nation of laws.
I've taken to describing this aspect of Americana as "the fatal need to have a pretty good time", after the Minced Mockingbird post[0].
[0] https://www.mincingmockingbird.com/products/fatal-american-n...
Few days ago a law that forbids non professionals to set off fireworks started applying... We'll see if that makes any difference.
Then like me you can just worry about whether some dipshit is going to burn your house down while you're away.
Luckily it's so wet here at the moment the fire risk is minimal.
I don't light fireworks.
People might say you just made this up for internet points. But this is real, this is an actual thing that happens to dogs (and other pets) when exposed to prolong fireworks noise!
Here, it is illegal. First offense is a fine, second offense is jail.
You have quite the faith in code enforcement.
And I have a pretty good idea of heights around here. I mentioned I work at Boeing on flying things so I track the ones that fly over me. They're usually about 1000 to 1500 ft. AGL on approach when they go over my house and about 200 knots. Southwest has the most flights into and out of St. Louis so it's usually a 737, and those have a wingspan of just over 100 feet on the newer models.
So yeah, I'd say these fireworks were going up at least 300 feet.
I counted upwards of 23 fires on the map at any single point in time, between sunset and 11pm. Most of those calls indicated either debris fires, or Dumpster fires, but there were also roof fires and vehicle fires, including one police-involved car accident.
I stayed inside all weekend after attending church on Saturday evening. The Air Force flyover was not visible in my area. I immensely enjoyed the celebrations on live streaming. And singing my heart out, creating new playlists.
Opposite for me, I plan on vacationing to somewhere I can have more fun with my kids.
-don't miss the hill restaurants
-maybe still stick around if you own a house such as to help prevent it being set ablaze that night inadvertently...
What makes you think police are going to pay heed to teens with heavy pyrotecnic ordinance ?
And even if they did, would the DA prosecute ?
Not that I've known a ton of people who work for local police departments, but the majority of the ones I have known are exactly the type of people who are likely to partake in illegal residential fireworks around the 4th of July.
My eldest was very hard to put to sleep last year and the year before that, but it also never occurred to me to think people shouldn’t set off their fireworks on my account.
(And I’ve never set off commercial fireworks in the city myself, I guess this is just a difference in mentality around nuisance.)
Fireworks (display) kinds are illegal in Illinois and there are absolutely no fireworks shot off the before and after 4th of july. Nothing happens nothing to see here.
A moment of pause.
We all grew up doing our own bonfires and fireworks, but now it's mostly organised large displays at public parks and other venues.
Sadly after a conversation with the school's insurance company, we haven't been able to run one since due to the cost of cover.
Given the incident widely reported incident here in the UK, some years ago, I think people are more aware of the risk that running one of these events entails: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_M5_motorway_crash#:~:text...
Fireworks are a lot of fun. Sure not everyone's thing but many enjoy them and can manage to use basic safety and not endanger anyone.
I just can't believe a firework going off right at an airport was not intentional. I believe someone was most likely thinking "I'm gonna lite this off right by a plane for all to see my awesome show!". Not trying to hit the jet but rather just look at me people isn't this awesome!? No it is not.
This is the type of thing that ends up getting fireworks banned or more controlled for the rest of us.
Reminds me of the idiot who flew his drone over an active forest fire while crews were actively fighting it causing the helicopters or water bombers to have to disengage the fire until the drone was gone. Then drone rules get tightened for the average guy just wanting to have fun responsibly.
This only happens because we (you, plural) let it. You can simply not let it be ruined despite the irresponsible people.
I flew in once on CNY and could see constant flashing all below during our descent into Beijing capital. The whole country side looked like it was exploding, and the villages were nestled on mountains or in mountain valleys to great effect.
Parts of the fence surrounding the airport is across the street from a neighborhood. You can sit and watch planes landing not too far above your head. I'm not surprised a consumer grade firework was able to hit one of those planes.
Luckily no new fires started around here, but we also have the local "Pioneer Day" on July 24 that starts up a fresh round of pyrotechnics.
I live in a capital city thats surrounded by forest. I've never heard of any forest fires caused by them, but I guess it's because winter - we often have snow that time of year.
It definately has a big effect on air quality though, the smell of gunpowder lingers until the next day. We are far from the sea so there is little wind that time of year, and the cold temperatures cause the smoke to stay close to the ground (same issue with wood burning stoves which are common in older houses).