Fireworks should be banned

[DodgyAgent]

Same with guns. It's only the irresponsible dickheads who spoil it for the rest of us who want to swan about the high street with a 12-bore under our arms.

We have otherwise perfectly respectable people in our village who throw parties with midnight firework displays that wake everyone up - at any time of the year - so I'm all for a ban.

Interesting one. I support firearms bans but I would not support a fireworks ban. Is there no rule here? and therefore is the question of banning guns and not fireworks a matter of degree and judgement?

[DodgyAgent]

Why do the general public need fireworks? Anything you can buy in a shop is nowhere near as good as the ones at a display. The majority of these weapons get into the hands of delinquent children who use them to terrify old people and animals for a month every year, all hours of the day. There is no argument for the public to have them in the light of the way they will always be abused.

No they dont, the majority of them get into the hands of responsible adults. For the millionth time stop exaggerating.

[BoredBloke]

A guy I worked with a few years ago used to always buy one really big firework - He was quite sad! One year next door had a party and all you could hear was Ohhhh and Arrrr (not farmers or pirates) but small children as they watched their little fireworks. He went down his garden and planted his big firework. He then set it off and said that it was like a Vietnam movie as he ran up the garden with this thing exploding behind him. Once his Somme recreation had come to an end, the Ooohhs had been replaced by the crying of small children.

[wendigo100]

Last year my mate Simon set off one of those multiple-shot things the shape of industrial-sized biscuit tins, but it fell off its perch onto its side and fired most of the flak up the garden towards the house.

[hyperD]

People (and now dogs as it happens) getting hurt is a damning indictment of the governments irresponsible dumming down of content in our school's science and physics curriculum.

[BoredBloke]

"Last year my mate Simon set off one of those multiple-shot things the shape of industrial-sized biscuit tins, but it fell off its perch onto its side and fired most of the flak up the garden towards the house."

I've done that before with one of those things. Pretty scary when you are trying to outrun a firework. Because my son can't see the nice fireworks we have to get ones which make a lot of noise.

When I was at school we were setting off rockets. We set this rocket off lay down on the road. It set off heading straight for one of my mates. He ran one way and it followed him, so he turned back and it followed him again. It ended up hitting his foot and he kicked it up in the air. It was like something out of a road runner cartoon.

[Bagpuss]

Hyper, Are you saying kids should be taught how to play with explosives? There has been a problem with kids abusing fireworks for as long as I can remember. The only difference nowadays is Bonfire night lasts for a month and a half , and people set them off on any occasion e.g. purchasing some shelves from IKEA. I'd like to see them for organised displays only.

PS welcome back

[hyperD]

Hyper, Are you saying kids should be taught how to play with explosives? There has been a problem with kids abusing fireworks for as long as I can remember. The only difference nowadays is Bonfire night lasts for a month and a half , and people set them off on any occasion e.g. purchasing some shelves from IKEA. I'd like to see them for organised displays only.

PS welcome back

Hi BP - thank you!

My reply was a little tongue in cheek but essentially you are right - the firework effect goes on for much longer nowadays. There's also some Muslim festival as well (Eid?) around this time. It was pretty bad in Uxbridge when I was there many years ago.

Getting back to the Physics thing, I do remember when I was a kid some other kid had "made a gun" using firework powder, a steel tube and some Mechano nuts as projectiles. He had stuffed the steel tube full of fireworks powder, drilled a small borehole at the crimped end and stuffed the other end full of screw nuts - a glorified cannon. He wedged it into a tree pointing over the neighbour's garden.

I felt immediately unsafe and said he shouldn't do it and the first thing I though was it could explode as it looked like quite thin tubing and it was well packed. I went as far away as possible as he went to light it.

There was a huge flash and loud bang - the tube had partially exploded and also dispelled it's cargo over the neighbour's garden - he looked startled, singed and had his hands cupped over his ears shouting "my ears, my ears".

All of a sudden this elderly woman peered over the perforated fence and obviously thinking she was bagging elephants back in the days of the Raj said "Are you alright John?"

[NickFitz]

As someone who nearly lost a hand through mucking about with pyrotechnics in my early twenties, I am totally opposed to any kind of ban on the sale of explosives to irresponsible juvenile pissheads.

I learned the hard way, and so should they.

P.S. Sincere thanks once again to the staff of the Leicester Royal Infirmary for doing such an excellent repair job. Next time, can I have some anaesthetic please?

[hyperD]

As someone who nearly lost a hand through mucking about with pyrotechnics in my early twenties, I am totally opposed to any kind of ban on the sale of explosives to irresponsible juvenile pissheads.

Could have had a good career in panto instead of IT...