Wednesday, July 4th 2007
Fireworks on the Fourth
In many cities in Orange County, private use of firework is banned. If you want to buy some legally, you have to travel to a neighboring city. In the five cities that allow the sale of fireworks, merchants are ready. Temporary shops made of plywood and paint pop up in plaza parking lots, ready to dispense colorful pyrotechnics. Anyone who wants fireworks can easily get them.
Should cities be allowed to ban fireworks? I say no. There are a couple of letters addressing the point in the Orange County Register. Basically, the use of fireworks is dangerous, can cause fires, and hurt people. As an opposing letter points out, they are not the only items to do so:
It is only a matter of time before barbeques will also be banned because one or two drunken boneheads burn themselves. It seems our Nanny State government is out to protect absolutely everyone from everything for our own good.
This is a realm where government is exceeding its limits. When I was growing up I heard, “Don’t play with matches.” I think don’t play with fireworks (or at least know it is dangerous) is a reasonable extension. The responsibility lies with each person to use sensible judgment.
Happy Fourth of July to you and your family. Enjoy your freedom responsibly.
Many homes every year burn from Christmas tree and other holiday lights, so we might as well ban those too because people could get hurt.
On the other hand, it can get the cities lots of revenue for writing folks tickets for their illegal independence day fun. Aka I agree with you.
Comment by megans — 7/5/2007 @ 9:53 pm
So these dudes/dudettes started lighting fireworks on my street at 11:45 pm last night. The lady down the street done pulled out her hose and started spraying those things like she done cought herself a terrorist! When the fireworks were out of reach she started porting water with a pot!
“You’re going to burn my house down!” she yelled.
As you say, Mr. Page, “The responsibility lies with each person to use sensible judgment.”
I’ll leave this one for the court of public opinion.
Happy post 4th!
Comment by Mainstreet, P.R. of B — 7/6/2007 @ 1:28 am
Rednecks should be allowed to use fireworks at all times. They always do something retardaciously fantastic with them.
Comment by Avinash — 7/6/2007 @ 8:01 am
At the risk of destroying what’s left of my conservative bona fides, I think that a pretty solid case can be made for a difference between private use of barbecues and private use of fireworks. Sure, you can hurt yourself using a barbecue, but you can’t really hurt anyone who’s not involved in the barbecuing. On the other hand, a lot of fireworks fly and can maim or injure someone who has nothing to do with the fireworks themselves. At that point it stops being a private health risk and becomes a public health risk, in which case a city would be justified in banning them. (As a kid, I was traumatized when someone threw a firecracker at our car on Fourth of July…maybe I’m just speaking from fear here…)
On the other hand, if fireworks are really banned because people might hurt themselves, that’s pretty lame. But I doubt that’s the case.
Comment by jfullmer — 7/6/2007 @ 1:42 pm
BBQs can hurt other people, too, if you light your house on fire. A line has to be drawn somewhere, though, I guess.
Comment by Beetle — 7/6/2007 @ 2:18 pm
Where is my comment about Fusion Squared and the new BCR website?
Are you censoring?
Comment by LOL — 7/6/2007 @ 2:48 pm
The system marked your comment as spam. Here it is:
Name: LOL Date: 6/30/2007
Oh man! I can’t believe you guys redesigned the BCR website with the same cookie-cutter formula as every other “Fusion Squared” website. Even have that whole Reagan fetish thing going on.
In my opinion, simple and classy (maybe even professional) is the winning formula, but this is just ridiculous.
IT’S THE SAME WEBSITE!
http://www.berkeleygop.com/
http://rightwingclothing.net/
http://takebackccr.com/
http://myrockvideos.com/
http://libertypartyproductions.com/
http://ocyr.org/
Comment by Christopher Page — 7/7/2007 @ 1:22 am
Saying Republicans have a Reagan fetish is like saying Chirstians have a Jesus fetish. You are transparently jealous. The new BCR website is plenty simple and is 50 times more functional than the old website. Who cares if it looks like a handful of other websites?
Comment by Dude — 7/8/2007 @ 4:42 pm
Actually, the content on the old and new webpages are almost exactly the same. The new webpage lacks some info that is on the old (an now outdated) one. It’s more like the old webpage got a facelift that made it a lot more ugly. That damned music that starts playing each time you load a page on the new website is annoying as fuck. At least the new one was free, thanks to the kind donation by fusion^2
Comment by John Smith — 7/8/2007 @ 6:38 pm
[…] california patriot blog » Fireworks on the Fourth Explosions! Wheee! […]
Pingback by The Bears Are Roaring: Blog Roundup at Bears Necessity — 7/10/2007 @ 9:24 am
Yes, I’m really jealous I don’t have a Fusion Squared website with a Reagan and Churchill montage and an eagle flying over the US constitution in the shadow of the Berlin wall.
Comment by LOL — 7/10/2007 @ 12:35 pm
Are you an idiot? Why would I call you jealous of people that have a fusion squared website? I am calling you jealous for not having a company like fusion squared, like Kyle.
Comment by Dude — 7/10/2007 @ 10:29 pm
Just cause you’ve made a snazzy website and copied it 4 times for groups you are involved in, does not make it a company.
And just cause you’ve paid for the websites of all of your companies, does not make it a venture capital firm either.
Certainly he’s ambitious. I was just pointing out the funny fact about the Reagan fetish.
Comment by LOL — 7/11/2007 @ 5:39 pm
hey — chris, megan, james:
i’m not allowed to post on the blog this summer, so one of you cover this:
http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=25362
(oh, and you can delete this comment when you’re done. thanks!)
Comment by Amaris — 7/11/2007 @ 8:50 pm
Ross Lingenfelder is gay.
Comment by Confucius — 7/17/2007 @ 8:44 pm
James, as much as I like writing with you, you are in danger of doing exactly what you said, losing conservative bona fides. Banning fireworks, as anyone near Piedmont ave (aka Frat Row) could see, does nothing to prevent them being fired off. Lots of people are able to light fireworks without hurting themselves and other people. Stupid people will still light them off and hurt themselves, no matter what. So I’d be in favor of letting smart people have fun and stupid people do, as the other commenter said “something retardaciously fantastic”, which is a great way of putting it.
Comment by megans — 7/18/2007 @ 9:08 pm
“Banning fireworks, as anyone near Piedmont ave (aka Frat Row) could see, does nothing to prevent them being fired off.”
Not necessarily. Fireworks aren’t guns. Banning guns doesn’t work, because the type of people who would shoot someone are not the type of people who would turn in their guns if they were illegal.
Fireworks, on the other hand, are not usually used to harm people intentionally. I’m sure a goodly number of people who cause bodily harm to others while using fireworks are law-abiding citizens who wouldn’t shoot off fireworks if they were illegal.
And the problem is not stupid people hurting themselves (plus, plenty of “smart” people end up doing that too - no one tries to hurt themselves) - it’s people hurting other people.
There’s nothing non-conservative about allowing communities to police behaviors that can hurt innocent bystanders. Drunk driving, for example.
Comment by jfullmer — 7/19/2007 @ 11:22 pm