Light it and run!

Fireworks and daylight saving time.  When I was a boy, those were the two big local option issues that voters regularly confronted.  Some years, adjoining towns -- like where I lived -- had summer clocks an hour apart.  And fireworks were a perennial problem. 

Some years, my town allowed everything, or at least winked its eye at their sale and use.  Other years, fireworks were strictly prohibited.  Several years, sales were strictly prohibited in my county, but wide open in the next county to the west.  My brother and I would bike fifteen miles or so to the county line, a line marked by the joyous sight of red, white and blue fireworks stands, clustered -- like casinos at the Nevada state line --  awaiting our business.

The daylight saving time issue was solved years ago, with uniform time enforced first in the state and ultimately nationwide (excepting ever-dissident Arizona).  But regulation of the sale of fireworks in Washington is as balkanized now as ever.  Sale and use are forbidden in the bigger cities, but every county, city and town is free to permit their sale and use, and many do.  And the Indian reservations -- from huge county-sized tracts like those of the Yakimas, to tiny micro-reservations of a few acres each in Western Washington -- are a law unto themselves (and they can sell firecrackers, rockets, and other delights otherwise forbidden by state law).

In other words, no matter where you live, it's easy to reach an area where fireworks are sold.  And no one's apt to toss you in jail if you set them off, especially on the Fourth itself. 

The usual newspaper headlines have already started to appear -- the same ones we read and despised as kids .  "Officials Warn About Illegal Fireworks," reads today's Seattle Times.  "Injuries already starting."

As I try, without much success, to explain to libertarian friends, I see most of life in shades of gray.  I don't oppose governmental attempts to keep people from inadvertantly killing and maiming themselves.  Seat belt laws and bicycle helmet laws do not appall me.  They do not impress me as being "governmental use of force and violence against citizens," simply because the government has the power to enforce them.  On the other hand, I share the libertarian impulse that we should be allowed to be wild and crazy at times, despite the risk.  Thus, I'd be seriously upset if the National Park Service banned the climbing of Mount Rainier, justifying the prohibition by the predictably frequent deaths of climbers and rescuers.

Fireworks falls in that gray area between those two poles.  No, I wouldn't want my child or other relative to blow off his fingers or lose his hearing because of misuse or misperformance of a firecracker.  From my own youth, I know that fuses do sometimes burn faster than expected, with painful results.   And I realize that parental prohibitions may not be sufficient to prevent kids from getting their hands on fireworks -- my great childhood memories of evading parental desires have not faded all that much.

On the other hand, personal use of fireworks is a traditional form of celebration.  Not only an American tradition on the Fourth, but among the Chinese and their American descendants at Chinese New Year, and among other national groups.  We have to weigh the occasional accidental injury from use of fireworks against the fun and sense of tradition that inhere in their use, keeping in mind that the problem exists for only a two or three day period each year.

Everyone does his own weighing of pros and cons.  Mine comes down on the side of allowing pretty much wide-open sales and use of fireworks, within the five-day maximum time period permitted by Washington state law (when not prohibited or further limited by local authorities).  Many thoughtful and respected citizens obviously feel differently, including the writer for the Times.

I just remember the thrill of visiting the fireworks stand and staring agog at the immense variety of explosive and incendiary devices awaiting my purchase, the fun of lighting a fuse and jumping backward before the damn things went off in my face, the disgustingly militaristic delight in blowing up my toy jeeps and tanks. 

Even as a presumably cautious adult, I can't now deprive today's kids of all that excitement and fun; I couldn't now hypocritically join the once-despised (albeit socially responsible) chorus of exhortations that beg us to keep the Fourth "Safe and Sane."

Happy Fourth of July!