Dealing with illegal fireworks by making them legal makes about as much sense as handling the problem of difficult-to-enforce speed limits by rescinding all of them. Yet that very thing has been proposed in both Ohio and West Virginia.
No doubt hundreds, perhaps thousands, of area residents broke state fireworks laws during the Fourth of July weekend. It is a minor miracle no one was seriously hurt.
Fireworks laws are in place for the same reason other dangerous substances and activities are restricted - to lessen the possibility of injuries and deaths. Increasingly, however, buying "illegal" fireworks is easy in both our states.
That has led some officials to suggest it might be better to legalize virtually all fireworks. Ohio State Fire Marshal Larry Flowers suggested to a Columbus Dispatch reporter that, "Sometimes, when you open things up more, it gets more safety information out and could have a positive effect."
Other officials - again, in both West Virginia and Ohio - have an agenda unrelated to safety.
As you may already have guessed, they'd like to see some fireworks in state treasuries.
Sales of fireworks have skyrocketed during the past few years. According to the American Pyrotechnics Association, Americans bought $636 million worth of fireworks last year, compared to just $284 million 12 years ago.
In both our states, making more fireworks legal could bring in millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue.
But it also could mean more trips to the emergency room for Ohioans and West Virginians. More than 8,000 fireworks-related injuries are reported each year in the United States. About 18,000 fires are caused unintentionally by fireworks each year.
Legalizing now-banned pyrotechnic devices would lead to an increase in their purchases - and use. Almost inevitably, that would mean more accidents.
Without hard evidence legalizing pyrotechnics reduces accidents, perhaps from states where the change has been made during recent years, the move is something residents of our states should not make. It could amount to lighting a fuse leading to an explosion in the number of fireworks-related accidents.
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