Speaking of Bans

I spent much of the weekend blowing off fireworks. It's been a few years since Minnesota rolled back a tiny little fleck of its paternalistic past and repealed its ban on fireworks. Granted, our legislature only legalized fairly innocuous fireworks - but here in the Twin Cities we're less than half an hour from Wisconsin, where the fun stuff - bottle rockets, mortars and firecrackers - are available. And most Minnesota police departments don't bother with the less-flagrant flauntings of Minnesota law.

Did the ban ever do any good? Of course not, according to John Lott:

Last year, states with bans actually had a much higher fireworks-related death rate (.027 per million people) than states without restrictions (.012 per million). Injuries are much more difficult to track, but there were an estimated 9,700 fireworks-related injuries treated in hospital emergency rooms during 2003 (6,600in the month surrounding July 4th), the vast majority of which were relatively trivial. This is only a fraction of the over 200,000 injuries suffered from falls, accidents in bathtubs, scalding water, and electrocution.

The massive volume of the explosives sold across the United States raises a question: Short of erecting a wall around a state, how effective can any ban possibly be? In fact, banning personal use of fireworks might actually result in more accidental fires if some of those who try to avoid getting caught set them off in remote fields, causing fires that take longer to discover. Teaching the public about how to use fireworks safely is preferable to bans.

So I like to think I'm doing my bit not only for patriotism, but for safety.

Posted by Mitch at July 5, 2005 07:31 AM | TrackBack