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Opening Arguments

An issue with a short fuse

The backlash over fireworks legalization continues to grow:

Three Northwest Indiana legislators who voted this year to legalize fireworks now say they want to give cities and counties the power to impose tighter restrictions on backyard barrages.

A fourth local lawmaker, meanwhile, says he wants to completely scrap Indiana's new fireworks law and make sparklers the only Independence Day incendiary device available to Hoosiers.

With Gov. Daniels backing local control and some legislators now getting on board, that seems like a good bet. But what kind of local control? Letting cities ban some types of fireworks now authorized by the state? Or merely letting them regulate the fireworks in line with their noise-control ordinances, which would let Fort Wayne, for example, cut them off at 9 p.m. instead of 11?

Comments

Bob G.
Mon, 07/17/2006 - 5:39am

Just BAN them outright...it's an explosion created by a chemical reaction....as is firing a GUN.
And we already HAVE an ordinance banning THAT, do we not?

I've had a bottle bomb tossed on the lawn a few years back, and THAT was plenty loud I can tell you. Sounds like a water heater blowing up. Amazing what kitchen supplies can do to wake people from their sleep, isn't it?

Yet, I don't see anyone banning the ingredients needed for those bottle bombs (info can be found online, btw).

It all comes down to that "quiet repose" thing they include in the noise ordinance. Maybe it's time to start enforcing that which is already on the lawbooks.

Face it, the city is too noisy as it is what with boomcars, cellphones, traffic, fireworks, gunshots, bad mufflers, hi-pro mufflers, NO mufflers, large trucks, trains, motorcycles, and even the 122nd ANG's F-16s doing a low fly-by now and then...and we've ONLY got 250,000 people...what would it be like with 2 MILLION?

ANYTHING that can be done to quell the din of this cacophony should be implemented.
If you can't TEACH people to be courteous and responsible...well, that's WHY we HAVE laws in the first place, isn't it?

B.G.

Laura
Thu, 08/03/2006 - 10:23am

amen BG!

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