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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, an
by jandrewrogers 4mo ago
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.
- colmmacc 4mo agoYou'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.
- NitpickLawyer 4mo ago> 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"...
- mihaaly 4mo agoYes, the typical endangering or hurting others for the sake of fun culture, very very precious and rich culture indeed! : /
- mmooss 4mo agoDo you know where they are legal/illegal? Multiple places I know of have legalized them.
- ocdtrekkie 4mo agoIllinois prohibits unlicensed individuals from buying or setting off commercial grade fireworks. People buy them in Indiana. Some of the largest fireworks stores in the country sit right on the Indiana side of the state line.
- tatersolid 4mo agoIllinois bans nearly all fireworks, not just commercial grade. You can basically only buy sparklers or tiny fountains. You have to visit Wisconsin or Indiana to get anything that pops, spins, bangs, or flies. Even those little ground spinners are banned in Illinois and they are hardly “commercial grade”.
- AstroNutt 4mo agoIn 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.
- camillomiller 4mo agoImagine 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!?!?”
- oasisbob 4mo agoCan 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.
- NelsonMinar 4mo agoI 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.
- rayiner 4mo ago[flagged]
- alsetmusic 4mo agoI 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.
- FuriouslyAdrift 4mo agoThere's nothing libertarian about Cali... you're thinking of New Hampshire. 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.
- davemp 4mo agoYeah I think that’s the difference. On the east coast in July, the big safety risk with fireworks is generally to your own person.
- gosub100 4mo agoIt's funny that CAs own "environmental" laws actually created the tinder box conditions in the forest. So their solution is more laws, of course.
- hdgvhicv 4mo ago> Today, fireworks are outlawed in much of the US because safety Hang on, fireworks are banned in the land of the free? But every kid should own an assault rifle?
- fragmede 4mo agoYes, proper fireworks are banned in much of America. Guns aren't a total free for all, either.
- rbanffy 4mo agoI 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.
- AstroNutt 4mo agoThere 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.
- hylaride 4mo agoAs 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.
- sidewndr46 4mo agoGiven 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
- lwansbrough 4mo agoIf they did this people like me would start setting off fireworks in protest.
- inigyou 4mo agoIf you set off a firework in front of a cop to protest fireworks being illegal, that would be illegal and you'd go to jail
- quailfarmer 4mo agoBut if you arrest him, I’m going to set off fireworks in protest. The market of stubbornness can remain solvent for a long time.
- inigyou 4mo agoCops have arrest quotas to meet - they don't mind arresting you too.
- lwansbrough 3mo agoThey actually do mind, which is why they don’t do it. Did you forget the reality of the situation? They mind because they are completely outnumbered. Policing only works if you can point out a small minority and say “these people are causing harm to the majority of us”. With something like fireworks (or cannabis protests in many places) the police are severely outnumbered and they don’t have enough room in their jails anyway.
- 3mo ago
- nearlyepic 4mo ago> 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.
- jimmaswell 4mo agoBeats the pants off "please sir, may I have some more" as seen in many other places
- nearlyepic 4mo agoNah, I’d rather beg for money than be run over by some dipshit driving a truck on swampers that’s 3 times as big as they’ll ever need. Oh, wait, in other countries you don’t have to beg and plead to receive healthcare.
- helterskelter 4mo agoI'm fine with idiots blowing their own hands off, I just worry about wildfires.
- dmurray 4mo agoFireworks 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.
- logicchains 4mo agoChina'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.
- inigyou 4mo agoSo is the USA. It's comparable.
- _heimdall 4mo agoOur government has absolute power without a constitution binding it and our population is disarmed?
- rbanffy 4mo agoWe 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.
- _heimdall 4mo agoI absolutely agree that things in the US seem to be going in a bad direction, but we haven't yet lost our constitution or system of checks and balances. There's a big difference between the Constitution, law, and doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, for example, was little more than policy and had nothing to do with law or constitutional rights. Our checks and balances are still there, the problem we have today is the lack of willingness for those with the power to actually use them. Congress can stop Trump on many of the things he's doing, for example, they just don't want to and have instead continued a decades long pattern of Congress ceding power to executive. The judicial branch has at least stepped in at times, they really don't have to as the Supreme Court can choose to simply not hear a case. The issue of lying politicians is as old as governments. If we want to focus on Trump as the issue here, and he's a big one, you only have to go back to the pandemic to find politicians on the other side of the aisle blatantly lying to the public without consequence.
- porridgeraisin 4mo agoYea, people have tried for decades to ban deepavali fireworks here in india with zero effect. It's simply not enforceable. The police themselves burst.
- goosejuice 4mo agoYou could say the same about guns.
- AstroNutt 4mo agoBack 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.
- newsclues 4mo agoSo regulated kids could get them and use them without supervision eh?
- chasd00 4mo agoThat’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.
- alsetmusic 4mo agoWe 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.
- abc123abc123 4mo ago[flagged]
- StefanBatory 4mo agoAs 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".
- rbanffy 4mo agoAs someone living on one of the westernmost parts of Europe, I’d ask them respectfully to not come here unless they are asking for political asylum (which we consider an inalienable human right). And, in their case right now, a very understandable one to want to exercise. I, for instance, would have done that the first time, in 2016. I wouldn’t wait for the circus to be on fire to leave.
- pseudohadamard 4mo agoI 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.
- rayiner 4mo agoThe twenty something guys in my neighborhood set off fireworks from a small boat in the river behind my house. Same guys took an ATV out on the ice when the river froze this winter. They haven’t died yet! I draw the line at setting the tinderbox that’s california on fire however.
- hollerith 4mo agoThe 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"? Bicycle theft?
- gilbetron 3mo agoAt 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.
- klaff 3mo agoI 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.
- runako 3mo ago> impossibility of enforcing fireworks bans 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.
- stryan 3mo ago> 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]. [0] https://www.mincingmockingbird.com/products/fatal-american-need-postcards-set-of-12-troubled-birds https://www.mincingmockingbird.com/products/fatal-american-n...