My 4th of July

I was lucky enough to spend the 4th of July up in the Seattle area with an aunt, uncle, and two cousins. Apparently a lot of that area bans fireworks all together. In fact, they are just down the street from one of the boundary lines. This year and next year fireworks are ok, but it is likely that in 2007 fireworks will be off limits for them too.

In just got me thinking about what makes sense for firework laws. I probably don't want to know how many Americans loose fingers, eyes, and other body parts from fireworks accidents this time of year. I guess a lot of that is personal risk though. I'm sure that every year there is a lot of property damage as well, and often it isn't the property of those shooting off the fireworks. How many homes burn down from fireworks each year? Is it worth for the fun of having personal fireworks? I certainly don't have a perfect answer.

I was also reminded of last year, when I spent my 4th of July at LAUP. We were always left wondering if what we were hearing was just the bangs of fireworks, or if there were gun shots mixed in too. It was until sometime after the 4th that we were relatively confident that the bangs we heard were in fact gun shots. Since I spent my time exclusively in middle class neighborhoods this year, I really didn't wonder about that too much.