How’s this for a celebration proposal:
Let’s take a bunch of explosives and throw them into the air, detonating each one with a loud, jarring report that rattles windows and sends house pets retreating under beds and into bathtubs for safety. Not only that, let’s use these explosives as the centerpiece for celebrating freedom—a freedom obtained thanks to the brave men and women who often return home from war riddled with PTSD largely due to enduring loud explosions during combat.
How does that sound?
To most reasonable people, it sounds utterly ridiculous. Yet, for some reason, we continue with our obsessive action of lighting fuses and blowing up small portions of the country to celebrate the Fourth of July. We gather our families in parking lots and front yards as we dumbly gaze into the night sky with our mouths agape, ooo-ing and ahh-ing at the boom-booms and bang-bangs.
And just because July 4 has passed, doesn’t mean the fireworks have ended. The smell of sulfur continues throughout the summer, as fire-crackpots continue to blast off at all hours of the day and night. From adults who should know better to young people who rarely do, residents across the Island continue to partake in this dangerous activity, risking life and limb for loud noises and some pretty colors. That is to say nothing about the spent rockets and whatnot that are left littering the streets after the firework exploits have concluded.
Enough is enough. Do rational people fire guns into the air when celebrating independence or some other patriotic holiday or just another random day? No. So why is everyone A-OK with untrained neighborhood showmen firing off bombs into the sky?
Fireworks were once completely illegal in New York state and they should be once again. Let’s cut the fuse on this deadly tradition.
—Steve Mosco
