Thought for the Day

[bajaespuma]

If "Homeland Security" is so G*d Damn important to the Federal Government and all of the talking heads on the news,

WHY IS IT THAT ANY FOOL CAN BUY FIREWORKS(i.e. "explosives")STILL IN THIS COUNTRY?????

Is the fireworks lobby that powerful?

I don't know about all of you, but up until I was an adult, you couldn't buy fireworks in NY or in Connecticut. But now, everywhere you go you see stores where you can get them?

Uh, is it just me or is this another case of confused Americans thinking that free enterprise trumps common sense?

Hello?

 

[frigilux]

Although fireworks sales are limited in Minnesota, I live near the South Dakota border, where strip mall-sized fireworks stands open in the summer. I'm not aware of any security problems. Fingers are blown off occasionally, or someone loses an eye. At least once a season some idiot lights them in a burn-restricted area and starts a grass fire, but other than that we seem to survive the fireworks season relatively unscathed.

I think it would take a LOT of bundled M80's to so much as blow out a storefront.
I suppose if someone walked into a Starbucks and set off a consumer-sized starburst cluster (meant to shoot a couple hundred feet into the sky) it could potentially kill--or at least severely burn--some people.

Fireworks are so common in this part of the country that I've never really pondered their ability to pose a larger threat.

 

[panthera]

Hmm,

It seems to me that the problem with fireworks is rather similar to the problem with guns.
Even if the feds could stop sales of everything, tomorrow, there are so many millions upon millions of guns and ammo and fireworks out there that it would take about 150 years for any true effectiveness to be reached.

In the meantime, the folks in the Rocky Mountain West for whom guns are a tool, would be furious and the democrats would lose our slender majority.

This is a no-winner for Obama. The best we can do is to invest more in our police, in their training.
[this post was last edited: 5/7/2010-17:35]

 

[qsd-dan]

Over the counter fireworks are the least of worries. It's the homemade ones shot off by careless drunkards that raise concerns.

Seriously, what kind of fireworks can pull this off?

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>