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its unfair to compare fireworks to cars

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not really as both are primarily used purely for pleasure and not as a matter of necessity (going to the cinema ,bowling ,civic firework display (hmm wonder how many people per annum are killed and maimed by someone driving to and from an organised display !)etc are not necessary journeys which makes them
another form of recreation (as with fireworks) the scale is bigger but the comparison stands i am not advocating banning cars ,but why ban something that is "relatively" safe (fireworks),
when used properly ,and not consider all the other liberties you could remove from the poor uneducated masses that cant be trusted with thier freedom of choice
the phrase that comes to mind is "the thin end of the wedge"


Edited by - [steel on 5/25/2006 8:06:40 AM

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i think every time someone kills or injures themselves doing something stupid its a boon to the human race - our genepool cannot afford a surplus of stupid people when the progress of technological advance makes self extermination easier.and people who are affected by someone elses stupid actions? such is the risk we must accept for living in freedom.life is dangerous, end of lesson. and where the #$&$@! are your bobbies? they should be in the street with rubber bullets based on your description

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Bobbies on the beat? There is a huge debate about the current human rights legislation at the moment over here, because the only rights that are apparent are those of the criminal. There are also issues with making "community safety officers" or whatever they are, which are cheap police. They have no real powers at all, cost not far off the same as a cop to employ/pay - and are championed as the way forward. Whats worse, they want to get rid of police and replace them with these things too.

I could go on all day, quoting issues, papers and more - but it's just so damned depressing. Even when sent to prison, regardless of crime, they get out after just half their sentence.

Edited by - Chips on 5/25/2006 9:46:03 AM

and don't forget Chips.....these criminals also have *accidents* when they're inside and claim off the state...last time i hear it was to the tune of £4 million...oh and guess what,only £200 K was actually settled in court!

Anyone out there got room for a lodger?

1 proviso..must NOT be in UK

(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(" )_(" ) signature to help him gain world domination.

Edited by - ds9phoenix on 5/25/2006 10:19:18 AM

Look, basically your arguement stands at this, "Thousands of people should suffer injuries and property damage so the rest of society can enjoy their fireworks for a day."

In my country last year I'm going to quote a few statistics...

The fire department was called out 2000 times during the 10 days fireworks were for sale. (That's basically 200!! times a day)

Firefighters attended over 700 fireworks-related fires in vegetation, buildings, and cars as well as nuisance fires in rubbish bins, letterboxes and other small spaces.

Police attended nearly 1200 fireworks-related incidents, with 21 per cent of all call-outs for disorderly behaviour, bomb incidents and property damage during this period being fireworks-related.

In all there were 1867 fires, up 70 per cent on 2004 and the highest number since sky rockets were banned following a disastrous Guy Fawkes Day in 1994.

Initial police figures show that, in addition to the fires, more than 240 letterboxes were destroyed or damaged by fireworks.

Vegetation fires were up 34 per cent on 2004 to 330.

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What a god damned waste of public money, our taxes are some of the highest in the world and it's going towards funding idiots and retards really. What if there were a murder in progress and the police couldn't come because some stupid kids were shooting fireworks at a house? Very possible since the police in NZ are stretched very, very thin.

You have to think beyond the immediate consequences. So the stats say that so many people were injured from fireworks. That's not the end, the idiots and their victims clog up the hospitals and take up room so that people who are really injured or have an illness that can't easily be detected like meningitis have to wait. The sick person ends up dying after waiting hours because it's too late and the really injured person has to endure pain while the idiots get treated.

The same sort of thing goes on here with drug manufacturers, when their labs explode and they get serious burns, they actually get priority treatment over law-abiding citizens. This encourages the druggies and the fireworks idiots (The general public) get similar treatment around Guy Fawkes.

People are stupid, and not just a few, it's the majority who are stupid and the minority who are smart. And these figures are from a small country like New Zealand.

Edited by - Balthazar Furious on 5/25/2006 1:13:38 PM

that sounds like a problem limited to new zealand. as i said, 0.6% of fires here are caused by fireworks. to illustrate how insignifigant 0.6% is take a hundred grains of salt, pull one out of the pile and cut it in two - thats the scale of the "problem" here

fireworks have been banned here since i was about 6 or 7. It's too dangerous. most people insist on shooting them at each other or not being responsible with them. they have started numerous fires. and being as it is a holiday where people go crazy, there's no doubt people will be drunk.

Cold Void, you don't mention over what time scale those fires occur. If it's a whole year for normal fires, and just statistics from one night for fireworks, then it's actually nearly 100% higher than normal.

If we are going to talk statistics, then we should provide links to where the information comes from imo. I am willing to do this over crime figures, as any newspapers website (including BBC) should have it emblazoned everywhere...

As you get older, they lose their importance and value to the point you say , ehh big deal, then go on to something more intresting.

Chips is right.

If you surf around you will find statistics thrown up by the fireworks industry that tends to trivialize by sheer mass of annual numbers of incidents the "insignificance" of fires, injuries, etc. in a year.

The point is that fireworks are not a 365 days of the year acitivity. When you boil down those incidents to the days of the year when fireworks actually are used, you will find that they predominate as the cause of fires or fire alarms.

Comparing cars and fireworks is stupid. Cost-and-benefit wise, that is. Let me ask you, what are the benefits of lighting fireworks? there is only one answer: joy. And the risk/cost? plenty. Injuries caused by fireworks may not be as high or as gruesome as traffic accidents, but risk all these for JOY?

And the benefits of cars? can I really enumerate them here? cars take you to parties, transport goods and people and basically one of the primary pillars of economies in ANY country. That is why people and governments tolerate and accept grave risks that come with cars. Furthermore, cars are tightly regulated. Training to obtain Driver's license, vehicle registration, etc will ensure that most of the offenders don't get away. Can you say the same with fireworks?

so you would favor....Fireworks Licenses for consumer grade fireworks? get real!

i believe in the right to life,liberty,and the pursuit of happineess - and the HAPPINESS people derive from fireworks is far greater than any damage they've caused, or else they never would have been legal.

we can all quote statistics, but in the end the questions are A.do you care about the liberty B.does the liberty offend you C.what will you do about it(politically)

if you find fireworks offensive, you are probably in the Nanny category - and your next issue will probably be mandating child proof pencils with softer lead.

liberty is an excercise in responsibility, and as i see it there are a lot of lazy countries represented here, countries with neither the responsible citizens nor the liberty to properly use fireworks. frankly, i'm glad you people aren't allowed anything dangerous, as buckets and bicycles are probably the limit of what you can handle.

*cleaning his rifle and thanking his lucky stars he had the luck to be born in a country where liberty is truly valued*

Instead of insulting other people, their governments and their fellow countrymen while at the same time praising your own as if it were the best in the world, why don't you contribute something meaningful to this discussion please. Or are disparaging words your strongest arguement?

Anyway

The bottom line is, you don't care about hurting other people and disrupting their lives because you want your precious liberty. You know what? Let's just let people rape and murder others for their own pleasure, it doesn't matter if people get hurt or die from it, nothing should interrupt their liberty. And if it makes them happy, what right do you have to stop them and prosecute them?



Edited by - Balthazar Furious on 5/26/2006 3:43:09 AM

you're obviously confused about the difference between liberty and lawlessness - not surprising. its a matter of responsibility - if you rape you go to jail. if you kill we will kill you(once you're tried). if you shoot someone in the eye with a firework you are liable for all damages and can be prosecuted for assault. if you light someones house or property on fire(using any method) you are guilty of arson and will spend at least a decade in jail.

i don't find liberty or responsibility to be at odds with each other - i think they go hand in hand. with greater liberty comes greater responsibility, and yes i will say it - we've got every country on earth beat when it comes to both.

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would rather live in fear for my life than to live in a child-proofed world where no harm could possibly come to me.

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What's life without the constant fear of death, eh? Longer.

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it works, like firearm possession in the US, because the vast majority of people are good and don't go looking for people to maim and kill

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Can I just ask you what guns are for? I think you may be missing their point.

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your argument boils down to liberty for safety. whose liberty for whose safety is the real question

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I quite disagree. Why the hell should I risk my life and limb to go about my daily business so you can shoot explosives at nothing in particular?

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if its life, i would say that 9600 injuries do not outweigh the joy that hundreds of millions of people get from safely and responsibly using fireworks.

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Ooooh, that is rich . You have the nerve to tell us (presumably) with a straight face that you think it is morally and socially acceptable to deliberately injure almost ten thousand people so the rest of you can watch pretty lights in the sky? I say deliberately because you are making the binary choice of letting those people be injured by having fireworks.

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once you accept this lie the next logical step is protecting people from their own stupidity, which is the cell-padding Nannyism that i, and i hope everyone here, find repulsive and insulting.

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No-one's talking about protecting people from their own stupidity. We're all taking about protecting other people from other people's stupidity. The only thing I find 'repulsive' and 'insulting' is that you have the arrogance to believe your right to watch explosives and lights in the sky supercedes the right of any individual to live their life without fear of injury or death.

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and yes, its unfair to compare fireworks to cars, cars are in use 24/7 365 - but consider that the injuries caused by cars are far more gruesome. anyways, the fact remains that a bucket is 10 times more likely to kill a child than a firework, and a bicycle 60 times more likely to injure.

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Name me one thing that had a definite practical use and purpose that was banned because it was dangerous. Cars are essential, whether you want to admit it or not. Fancy doing your weekly shop on the bus? Care to find a viable replacement to the bucket? Fireworks are useless . They have no practical application whatsoever.

EDIT: Ok, a few things like asbestos come to mind, but it's the idea that I was getting at. Usefulness = not banned.

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add to these facts that "although consumption of fireworks in the U.S. has increased in recent years from 29 million pounds per year to 80 million pounds per year, the rates of fireworks-related injuries have actually decreased. The injury rate, per 100,000 pounds of fireworks used, dropped from 38.3 in 1976 down to 10.1 in 1995 - a 74% drop in the injury rate."

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This is hypocrisy. There were fewer rules about fireworks back then. As more rules were introduced, quality controls etc. came into place, injuries went down. You are tooting the results of the very philosophy we (us sane people) are trying to explain as evidence for why we shouldn't impose restrictions on fireworks.

Also worth noting is that between those years (assuming injury rate went down steadily whereas it would have stayed constant and not increased as more were sold) over twenty five thousand people were not injured as a result of restrictions.

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i think i would tell that person that 1.i'm terribly sorry about shooting you in the eye with a roman candle 2.please please please drop the charges 3.please please please dismiss your civil suit 4.pleeeeassse?

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This shows exactly how seriously you take other people's injuries. If you adopted that condescending tone with me, I'd stick "emotional distress" on the pile.

Quite a few ad hominem attacks probably slipped in there, but I don't care because it is my right to include them.


The Evil Thing, ruining the internet one sig at a time


Edited by - The Evil Thing on 5/26/2006 4:29:03 AM