Delaware has fallen even further behind in the inevitable path to legalization of consumer fireworks. This year Iowa adopted a full-line consumer fireworks bill.
Delaware, Massachusetts and New Jersey are the only three states left that continue to prohibit all forms of consumer fireworks to be sold and used.
Massachusetts had a failed bill a couple years ago, and New Jersey has a consumer fireworks bill currently active in the state Legislature, having been approved by the Senate May 25 by a vote of 35-1-4.
The use-injury curve of consumer fireworks is very attractive. Since 1994 when the industry began testing the products at the factory level in China before exportation to the U.S., the imports have increased from 117,000,000 pounds in 1994 to 285,300,000 pounds in 2015. During the same period the injuries per 100,000 pounds of fireworks used have dropped from 10.7 to 4.2.
This represents an increase in use of 143 percent against a drop in the injury rate of over 60 percent. This is a dramatic contrast, and is a major argument against those who would continue to outlaw the use of consumer fireworks to protect the citizenry. Where are the anti-fireworks legislators when the discussion comes to outlawing the use of cigarettes and other things like that which cannot be used without causing harm to the consumer?
The reduction in the number of fireworks-related injuries is even more impressive when you consider the CPSC injury statistics include injuries related to professional display fireworks, illegal explosives, homemade fireworks and altered fireworks - none of which are consumer fireworks.
Remember second U.S. President John Adams, in a now-famous July 3, 1776, letter to his wife Abigail, expressed that Independence Day "ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, bonfires and illuminations (fireworks) from one end of this continent to the other, from this day forward forevermore."
The time has come for Delaware to join 47 other states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico in legalizing the sale and use of some level of consumer fireworks. Please enjoy the Independence Day holiday with your family and celebrate safely.
William A. Weimer
Phantom Fireworks vice president
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