Fireworks are annoying. Few will disagree. Kids in this estate have been wrecking our heads for months with bangers and rockets. They have been used at times to terrorise older people, and they are dangerous; we’ve all heard the horror stories. So why legalise them? Wouldn’t that just make it worse? Answers: Safety, and no I don’t think so.
Fireworks have been illegal for decades yet it doesn’t prevent people getting hold of them. I can just nip into town now and get a packet of Black Cats if I want. Punishments might be more severe now but I don’t think that will really do much to deter anyone from buying them. Legal or illegal they will always be there and will always be annoying.
Why I would like to see them legalised is on grounds of safety. Do you know what safety guidelines a Fire Officer might issue concerning fireworks? None. Because he can’t. He can’t tell you how to use them safely, he can’t tell you what types are particularly dangerous and he can’t tell you how to take safety precautions when you want to use them. He can’t because they are illegal.
Surely if we are so worried about kids getting injured at Halloween then we need to issue proper safety guidelines other than just ‘don’t use them’; and more than that we need to control what sort of fireworks are actually being sold so we could weed out the particularly hazardous ones or those of inferior quality.
Legalising fireworks would allow us to better control what fireworks reach the market and how they are used. We could put the necessary legislation in place so that only licensed importers could actually import the fireworks, that only an approved range of fireworks (of regulated quality) are imported and that only licensed retailers could sell them. We could set age limits for purchase of fireworks and importantly we could issue all the safety guidelines necessary to properly educate people about the dos and don’ts of fireworks usage.
We could still crack down on those selling illegal fireworks but their business would quickly dry up if we could all just buy our fireworks from a licensed retailer. Plus, in the case of accidents we would now be able to prosecute people for mis-use of fireworks, the retailer for selling to minors or the adult for casually passing bangers to a child.
Fireworks will always be dangerous and annoying but I’ll bet you we’ll see far less kids losing fingers if we are allowed to teach people how to use them safely. Dat’d be my opinion anywayz.
The topic moment for firing these damn rockets and bombs over here is the night of New Year’s Day. But they don’t use just bangers, no. They use huge bags of powder. These bombs come from China, mainly. But there are illegal workshops in some basement especially in Southern Italy.
In the past we used to count ten-twelve dead every New Year’s Day, now we only have hundreds of severely injured people. And this is even worse, because they are a burden for our health system, because the need medical care for months and steal the bed to persons who are really in need. Because even after the hospital these people will remain disabled and will get a social pension to refund their inability, and those money come from my pocket, from my taxes.
Despite this, there’s no way to ban these fireworks, because it’s a popular tradition and even with a legal ban there will be always a way to get them from a smuggler!
Antonio,
“In the past we used to count ten-twelve dead every New Year’s Day, now we only have hundreds of severely injured people”
FUCK!! I didn’t realise it was that serious!
It’s a difficult issue to tackle, people will always want to play with fireworks and will get them some way … especially when they are part of a tradition. It’s the same in Finland, fireworks are very very popular.