IL Should Repeal Fireworks Ban

I know what I'm doing next 4th of July.

BTW - there's 73 Roman Candles involved here.
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I would assume the body part was a finger, for a state as large as Illinois a loss of a body part while sad is hardly huge problem. While we don't have to legalize every type of firework and I think there should also be age limits, they should be legal. In Champaign many of the listed fireworks that are illegal that will also need to change. Let freedom ring or bang or boom or something like that.

I would assume the body part was a finger, for a state as large as Illinois a loss of a body part while sad is hardly huge problem.

I'm not clear on what the size of the "state as large as Illinois" has to do with the "loss of a body part". Are you suggesting there was only a single injury in all of IL?

... there should also be age limits, [but] they should be legal.

Go look at the injury report PDF that prarie biker linked to. Over half the fireworks injuries were to those under 16. Would age limits work better if fireworks were legalized? One in eight injuries was to a child under the age of six. (Who lets a six year old have a firework?) The most common category of injury was to the eyes. It would be interesting to see how many of these injuries were serious vs. how many were superficial.

I think when you do risk assessments you always look at the greatest possible number of people that could be injured and divide that by the number of people that have been injured to find out how dangerous something actually is.

Close, but not quite - you're leaving out half of risk in that scenario. Risk is comprised of two components: magnitude and frequency. So, you'd have to multiply the magnitude of the injury by its frequency.

I think if you look at bicycle accidents and injuries you will find huge numbers in all the categories listed, even just in Champaign there have been a few deaths. Should we ban bicycles, boy would there be uproar over that, or are people just prejudice of things that you light?

This is true, if your risk manager only relied on a quantitative risk assessment. However, there are plenty of other things to consider in risk management, namely the costs and benefits of implementing some form of mitigation. Since civilian ownership of fireworks doesn't provide much benefit to society (I could see a reduction in the costs and traffic associated with public firework displays and some seasonal sales tax revenue), the opportunity cost of eliminating this risk isn't very high. Further, the risk reduction plan would be fairly cheaply implemented - prohibiting the sale of fireworks and increasing law enforcement for a few weeks out of the year is relatively inexpensive. The same cannot be said about bicycles, however.

I'm with Laura--I don't think the Governor knows we exist in downstate, nor does he care.

First I don't think you would get a permit. Second if you go to Indiana there is far more types of fireworks available that Illinois might want to make legal.
"Since civilian ownership of fireworks doesn't provide much benefit to society" some would say the same about bicycles, but many apparently feel that lighting fireworks on the 4th is as American as Apple Pie and unites us as a country. I will never forget looking out over Heilbronn Germany during New Years Eve and there were Fire Works, the big ones going off all over the city it was pretty cool. I think there will still be plenty of people that go to the regular fire works but there will also be people getting together at home and lighting them and we don't need the government getting in the way.
 

Should we ban bicycles, boy would there be uproar over that, or are people just prejudice of things that you light?

No, we should ban cars. Unless the bicycle fatalities are single vehicle, then we should enforce bans on drunk bicycling.

First I don't think you would get a permit.

Why not? The permits make perfect sense - they make sure that people lighting off aerial displays have a safe environment to do it in, where they won't injure their neighbors or their property. And in the event that a mortar does injure someone or something, they have adequate insurance to cover the damage.

It's just like owning a car - you have to demonstrate a certain level of safety and financial responsibility.

To be honest, I don't really care about the safety aspect that much - I'm mostly concerned with the financial responsibility aspect, since I don't want some broke kid torching my house.

"Does that include shooting and bombing Al Queda, or if there are exceptions let us know so you won't be branded a hypocrite."

It has do do with situations I consider possible in reality.  If someone on here threatens to drob a bomb on Moqtada al-Sadr, I'm not going to take it seriously.  If someone threatens to run over to xian's house or run4cvrlib's house and assault them, then I consider that unacceptable.

I don't really care if you don't like it, and I don't really care if you think I'm a hypocrite.  There's been way too much animosity in the comments lately, and there's no way I'm going to allow someone to threaten someone else.  I asked nicely the first time, and if it continues, I'll just start deleting the comments.

Thank you in advance for your understanding, goodwill and cooperation. 

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

"fireworks are illegal. Burning down my house or shooting one of my kids is just the type of thing the law seeks to prevent. To advocate the legal possibility of doing so is wrong.

Societies set rules FOR THE PURPOSE of preventing personal retirbution.  The likelyhood of run4cvrlib shooting a bottle rocket and hitting my house is zero, less than the possibility of me shooting an Al Queda breaking into my house. What are you, a Buddhist?"

Run4cvrlib did not threaten to burn down your house or shoot your kid with fireworks.

You threatened to beat him if a possibility you imagined ever occurred.  That's unacceptable.

Please continue the discuss the issue without threats.  That's all I ask.  And if you want to discuss this further with me, please email me - we've hijacked this discussion enough already.

While the statistics don't indicate how many house fires there were they noted there were no fatality so both seem not to be big possibilities and I would not want to see them happen to anyone's family

In 2004, according to the National Fire Protection Association, there were 1,500 structure fires (of which, 900 were homes) and 600 vehicle fires, resulting in 20 civilian injuries and $21 million in damage. The total number of reported fires started by fireworks exceeds 30,000. And 2004 was actually a low-incident year - 2003 saw over $60 million in property damage and 7 deaths (excluding the nightclub fire).

About 9,000-11,000 people visit emergency rooms annually with fireworks-related injuries. Sparklers and novelties (legal in Illinois) account for only about a quarter of the visits.

I also wrote that Illinois could legalize certain types of firework's that may not be as strong as other states and help limit the danger's you are concerned with. People want other types of fire works then want are available, I think they sometimes end up with some that do more harm then they expect. By giving them access to Fireworks that are a little stronger but maybe not crazy then it will actually help.

Illinois has legalized better fireworks - with a permit, mind you. These low-altitude aerials (the nearly professional style mortars) are far safer than firecrackers or bottle rockets, as they're manufactured and designed better. They don't result in as many injuries or fires because they almost always go straight up. That's why they're legal with permits, but cheap, consumer-grade ones aren't.

Why not do some of your own research instead of demanding statistic after statistic and then say, "I don't buy it!"

you would think that Illinois would have a greater share of the National number, making the national number lower, not all states are the same.

Actually, I would think that Illinois would have a lower share - since fireworks are illegal, there are fewer incidents where people can injure themselves. There are only nine states with the same or greater restrictions as Illinois: AZ, DE, IA, MA, ME, NJ, NY, RI, and VT. Aside from NY, all of these states are significantly smaller than IL.

I wonder if the people killed were actually the people killed in the fire at the bar caused by the pyrotechnics, not people lighting fireworks in their back yards.

These were explicitly mentioned - there were 100 deaths not counted in the regular totals.

The next paragraph in the report says that from 2000 to 2004 there were 2700 structures or vehicle fires and more then half were in 2004.

Umm, no - if you look at the data, you'll see that 2004 was actually a below-average year in structure fires. That 2700 is the average number of structure/vehicle fires per year.

I'm not so sure about "raising the numbers drastically" - from the resource I cited previously: "In 2005, 19 out of 20 (95%) emergency room fireworks injuries involved fireworks that Federal regulations permit consumers to use. The other 5% were large/illegal firecrackers, homemade or altered devices, and public display fireworks."

That's a pretty strong assertion without any shred of facts/documentation to back it up...you can not believe it all you want, but that doesn't change reality...