Arizona May Legalize Fireworks, Putting Fools Throughout The State In Grave Danger
Consumer-grade fireworks are currently illegal in Arizona, but the sate government is considering passing a bill that would give the fire marshal the power to regulate the sale of them. This has caused an outcry from anti-fireworks types who say that even the less powerful consumer-grade products are too dangerous. Unfortunately, one of the most publicized opponents is a guy who was severely burned in 2004 because he was launching mortar-style fireworks from his moving car, and one blew back in through the window and set his stash on fire.
There's no doubt fireworks have the potential to cause a lot of damage, but you'd think the anti-legalization opponents could find a better spokesperson.
"I've had 30 surgeries, plenty of skin grafts," said Crosbie, now 23. "I guess you could say I'm scarred for life because of this."
Yeah, we guess you could say that, considering there are scars all over your arms and face. We can't tell if you're trying to be funny or not, what with that whole "shooting fireworks out of a moving car" stunt a few years ago.
If you don't want to be like that guy, check out these fireworks safety tips from Consumer Reports, like how sparklers burn far hotter than people think (they're the number one source of fireworks injuries for kids under 5).
"Fire officials battle bill that would OK consumer fireworks" [AZ Central]
RELATED
"Fireworks safety tips for Independence Day" [Consumer Reports]
(Photo: Pixel Addict)
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Seriously, This guy is an advocate? Maybe we should ban kitchen knives because I accidentally cut myself 4 or so years ago and now there's a scar on my left hand.
Seriously though,
Banning items because some people can't handle the responsibility of using them is ridiculous. While fireworks can cause problems I think the anti fireworks movement needs someone a better spokesman than a reckless teenager who was breaking the law.
I am a tad surprised they would do this with the fire danger that exists every summer in the west. Utah allows the sale of them for a brief time in July and around New years but half the state is off limits due to being close to mountains or desert. There is always a rash of brush fires caused by stupid people. Can't imagine it being any different in AZ.
I dunno, there's something about shooting off legal fireworks that just doesn't seem as fun.
I find the thrill of the police stopping by your house to be a bit more enjoyable. :)
But isn't that exactly the point? Stupid people do stupid things, and when you put dangerous toys in their hands, they hurt themselves and they hurt other people around them.
Who do you imagine paid for those 30 surgeries and all those skin grafts? If you have insurance, you helped pay for it through your exorbitant health insurance premiums. If this chucklehead didn't have insurance and was covered by AHCSS, Arizona's answer to Medicaid, then your taxes paid for his care.
Really. Do you want to pay for another chucklehead's medical care? I don't.
Even more to the point: Chuckleheads tend to have lots of children. They think fireworks are toys, and they give them to the kiddies. One of my junior high friends was blinded playing with fireworks. So in addition to paying for that kid's medical care, we taxpayers also get to foot the permanent, lifelong disability payments for him.
How, please, is that a creative way for a state to make money?
My brother used to be hooked up with the Melrose Park mob. Not a member, just a friend of the head of it. He got us some great aerials, which he let us set off in the parking lot of his warehouse. One cop came by and asked us how we liked the fireworks - since he was the one that got them for us.
Yeah, fireworks laws do a lot of good.
"I've had 30 surgeries, plenty of skin grafts," said Crosbie, now 23. "I guess you could say I'm scarred for life because of this."
Uhh, no. You're scarred for life because of your stupidity.
There is a difference.
In fire danger states, there's probably a point to not legalizing them.
As for the rest of the country, there are fewer better darwin tools than fireworks and alcohol.
Go for it.
How about the idea of personal liability?
You want to go play with fireworks? Well fine, your body does, after all, belong to you and not to the government so why should they be able to say what you can and can't do?
I say legalize it and let people be responsible for their own choices.
we're definitely not a state I'd want fireworks in... just ask the Town of Williams ([www.anntorrence.com])... and they're in the north country where they don't even have to worry about buffelgrass.
Why would any state even have legalized fireworks?
Every summer the NJ State Police blows up mannequins to give some nice B-roll to TV stations and to show how dangerous fireworks are. What sort of backward hick state would have legalized fireworks?
ShadyPghGuy
How about the idea of personal liability?
You want to go play with fireworks? Well fine, your body does, after all, belong to you and not to the government so why should they be able to say what you can and can't do?
I say legalize it and let people be responsible for their own choices.
============================================
That'd be fine if only people shooting off fireworks were put at risk by their activity. But because of the fire hazard of fireworks (and the tendency of rockets and roman candles to travel long distances), the risk is not just to the user but to the community as a whole. Especially in a hot dry state like Arizona. If fireworks are legal and my neighborhood burns down on the 4th of July, who is "personally responsible"?
(That said, I see no serious problem with fireworks being legal in damp climates outside of densely developed areas.)
Terrible idea, from an Arizonan. I love fireworks, but everyone knows that when kids get a hold of some bottle-rockets, it's only a matter of time before you're shooting them at your buddies instead of into the air. One errant shot could end up in a dried-up creosote and whoosh!
@Shady: And if somebody shoots off fireworks and burns your house down, what then?
That is idiotic. July 4th is in the middle of the wrost of fire season. Every year the city-supervised fireworks display sets A mountain on fire in Tucson - and that is with firetrucks and "professionals" running the show.
Billy Bob and beer and fireworks out in Marana will set the whole damn state on fire. They can't even keep people from tossing lit cigarettes out of cars. They are not going to be able to get people to use fireworks safely.
Where is Janet when you need her?
@ShadyPghGuy: It's not about personal safety - it's about the very real risk of huge devastating wildfires. I don't give a crap if Joe Bob wants to blow his own hands off but when his smoking flesh alights a massive brush fire that threatens my house, then it's most certainly my business. And the state's business.
@ShadyPghGuy: That's easy to say but what happens when some idiot burns *your* house down?
As an Arizona resident, I respectfully object. It's very dry here, and there are far too many stupid people.
Hell Yeah, We won't have to drive all the way to AVI res. NV or stateline NV (Don't remember the town, you can buy, but illegal to set them off anywhere in the city) anymore! Ok, Flame ON....
I live in Tucson - this is a terrible idea. We constantly have fire alerts and wild fires. This, in my opinion, would only increase the danger.
Of course, the Arizona legislature put severe limits on direct wine shipments to residents to appease state wineries. It's not a stretch that they are removing the ban on fireworks to appease some business or another. That's what you get with a Republican legislature: businesses first, citizens last. And students extra-last.
Who cares if they are dangerous, they are ANNOYING. Anyone who didn't light the fuse isn't so amused by burning cardboard falling from the sky and the loud noise that soon follows.
Finally, but a little too late for me to make any use of it! Do you know how many times as a kid I traveled to New Mexico/Texas to purchase tons and tons of fireworks and then bring them back to Tucson and launch them off all over my neighborhood and desert? My dad was the driver! Never had a fire issue. You know, fire + being safe = good time, fire + carelessness = scarred for life. I'd say that shooting fireworks out of your car is careless. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, mainly because that would be pretty hypocritical of me =)
Yet this guy can legally get a gun :-)
Give a man fire, and he is warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he is warm for the rest of his life.
Due to death of Jennifer Strange I think we should ban the sale and consumption of water in AZ.
@Plates: Backward hick state?
I grew up in Minnesota and we used to pick up some fireworks and have fun with them every summer. I never had any big stuff, but things like bottle rockets and black cats were just fun.
Now I live in Arizona and I just thought it was a fire danger thing because of all the dried out plants here.
I'm averse to a lot of things you might consider "hick state" stuff... but I never really counted fireworks as one of them.
The problem with the 'safe' consumer fireworks is that it does not take much to modify them into something not so safe whose name should never be repeated by anyone ever. Like any normal teenage boy I went though my pyro phase and only out of pure luck did I survive (mostly) un-injured. Now that I live in the Phoenix area I can't even imagine legalizing any type of fireworks, especially during our hottest and driest time of year. So now I'm going to pull my grumpy suburban thirty-something card and hope that they keep the ban in place.
@billbillbillbill
i live in one of those "hick" states, indiana. in fact, nearly all fireworks are legal here. there was a story a few years ago about a family who made their own fireworks, and the addition on their house blew up, luckily no one was hurt. otherwise, people around here seem to understand how to use fireworks. just like they understand guns. the "hicks" around here take responsibility for their actions.
watch the way you refer to people. this "hick" just might have to save your life someday.....
Missouri has those year-round megastores and I don't hear of too many kids in Missouri being maimed or killed by fireworks. The biggest concerns here in Texas are setting off wild-fires with bottle rockets and roman candles.
OWTF there ain't much green stuff in the state to burn down and besides most people have an exterior faucet connected to a hose to put out the fire starting on their roof.
@jake7294:
You own a hose? Have an exterior faucet connected to the hose? Then what is your problem?
Sorry for the sarcasm.
Damn right it is a fire danger! Hope somebody gets some smarts real quick.
@VA_White:
I believe she is in Wishington DC. And no, that ain't no spelling error.
Everybody say after me: Term Limits for Congress are good.
Fireworks Safety Tip #1
When Mom rounds the corner, seconds away from busting you playing with lit sparklers in spite of her firm warnings not to, do not hide the lit sparkler down your pants.
Unless you're really good at maintaining a straight face.
@VA_White: The hottest, most hellish days of my life were spent dragging 4-0 cable and hose through a giant asphalt parking lot one early July in downtown Tucson. I was working for the company doing a Independence Day laser show instead of the usual fireworks because of the fire danger. It was 117 in the shade, and I am confident there were places out in that lot where the asphalt was starting to melt from the heat. I also drove the truck (from Orlando) to Tucson and my one clear memory of that drive was pulling off at night in hotel parking lots and never really being sure if I was in a gravel parking lot, or just gravel desert. I'll never understand why human beings intentionally live in such inhospitable places.
eh, people should learn to be accountable for themselves.
If you are too stupid to set off a piece of firework right, you deserve to be scarred.
On a side note, anyone ever notice that the Human race is the only species where "survival of the fittest, strongest, and smartest" is completely un-applicable???
sad really...
Good for the state. The nanny state experiment needs to stop so we can live our life with freedom.
If it was just the idiots that were getting maimed through their actions with fireworks I'd be fine, but unfortunately there are often other people and animals that end up victims of fireworks. The carnage and cost far is just not worth it.
Have a community organised firework show by all means, but personally I don't quite see the attraction of a few flashes going off in the sky.
@VilhelmGoldfinch: You'd save even more tax payer money by banning motorcycles and butter. Are you up for that, too?
With all that extra tax money maybe the government can buy us all a Ben the Michelin man suits to protect us against stairs, bees, and skin cancer.
Mode=Humor
Make America Stronger Through Natural Selection!
Allow (and encourage) stupid people to remove themselves from the gene pool.
@Plates: Statistically, cars are far more dangerous than fireworks. What sort of backward hick state would legalize driving?
But seriously, you can kill yourself with anything if you're stupid enough. Unless it's an environmental hazard (area is too dry or something similar), fireworks are just plain fun.
When is the push back going to come when we the people get the goddamn government out of our business???
I already have a 50/50 partnership in life with the government, yet they want to encroach more and more.
Fuck that.
As a resident of Arizona for the last 26 years, and of Gilbert, AZ, where Rep. Biggs apparently represents (though I have never heard of him) for 8 years, this is a very scary thought. I do NOT give a shout out to my city on this one.
Rep. Biggs probably thinks fireworks = a wholesome family activity. FAIL.
I don't think I've ever met an anti-fireworks type, except the cops driving up and down every street ruining people's fun on the 4th of July (the only day America even feels patriotic). Just legalize it and let people be responsible for their own choices.
@RomanaFinch: This guy is a moron, he shouldn't be advocating anyone. It's his fault he did something absolutely retarded, not the firework's fault. He did it of his own free will, he should suffer the consequences.
@aliasmisskat:
As a resident of the backward nanny state of Illinois, I say thank you to Indiana & that intersection that has Phantom Fireworks & Crazy Kaplan's across the street from each other!
Just another example of states coming up with creative ways to make money. Make something legal that isn't and tax the sh*t out of it. I'm all for it. It's better than raising sales taxes (I'm looking at you, California) and will aid in natural selection.