So when do the legal explosives legally go on sale?

What makes people think that banning legal fireworks will get rid of illegal ones?

Skippy67 said :

Chewy 14. If you need to blow things up to have fun, then you probably need professional help. Or haven’t learnt how to read. Maybe both.

Me haven’t learnt read and rite, that’s unpossible.

Let’s ban everything, so skippy can get a good night’s sleep.

Don’t worry about me BerraBoy68. Life is great for me too. I get out of the house. I have friends. Just not bogans who love bombs. Only when it’s 2.00 am in the morning and idiots are letting off firecrackers does life lack that bit of enjoyment. Perhaps that’s when your kids see them being let of?? If your life is so full of joy, then perhaps letting go of fireworks wouldn’t be so bad. So get of the house yourself. Maybe even do something constructive? Seriously.

Oh and Cheers Ari, that was for the newbie, not you.

Ari said :

Skippy67 said :

Same goes for BerraBoy68. You must have a crappy life if fireworks is the only thing that is fun in your life.

Skippy67, you are one uptight dude.

Bang!

Nice. Someone doesn’t agree with you and you start hurling insults. I feel sorry for you mate, I really do. Who said Fireworks are my only enjoyment?! You don’t know me. Life is great for me, esp. when my kids smile and laugh. Which is what they do most og the time, including when they see fireworks. Life must be pretty sad for you when you have to make rediculous comments about others based on nothing than their opinion isn’t yours. Get out of the house and make some friends, seriously.

Skippy67 said :

Same goes for BerraBoy68. You must have a crappy life if fireworks is the only thing that is fun in your life.

Skippy67, you are one uptight dude.

Bang!

Skippy67 said :

Same goes for BerraBoy68. You must have a crappy life if fireworks is the only thing that is fun in your life. Maybe you would like to live in Iraq. Lots of explosions there. Ooooh wouldn’t that be fun!

skippy67, a few of us enjoy fireworks, nowadays, without resorting to blowing things up. we did it when we were younger. i enjoy letting them off now in controlled conditions.

Same goes for BerraBoy68. You must have a crappy life if fireworks is the only thing that is fun in your life. Maybe you would like to live in Iraq. Lots of explosions there. Ooooh wouldn’t that be fun!

Chewy 14. If you need to blow things up to have fun, then you probably need professional help. Or haven’t learnt how to read. Maybe both.

Skippy67 said :

Try living without fireworks.

No thanks. I like fun.

I wish we could get these guys to do a fireworks display at Parliament House

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29099358

Both liberals and greens were for firework banning at election time. Doing a wonderful job of fence sitting when it comes to the crunch. Labor is giving us one last chance yet again.

Yes fireworks are fun, most people are responsible, but the minority will once again ruin it for all. Pretty laughable the firework ‘industry’ calling for the suburbs to be policed… we’d need to call the australian army and reserves to cover the whole of the city.

Looks like I’ll be spending next week picking up and returning stray dogs and cats, make sure yours are chipped and kept in (of course, cats should be always in).

bigred said :

Bring back the double bungers I say. The only way to destroy letter boxes, ant hills, and your neighbours’ sanity.

+1
green ones for preference…

Skippy67 said :

Try living without fireworks. The rest of Australia seems to cope without having random explosions at all hours of the night. Or are people’s lives so empty they just can’t get by without blowing something up??

Whoop Whoop, The Fun Police have arrived.

Bring back the double bungers I say. The only way to destroy letter boxes, ant hills, and your neighbours’ sanity.

Try living without fireworks. The rest of Australia seems to cope without having random explosions at all hours of the night. Or are people’s lives so empty they just can’t get by without blowing something up??

funny thing is that we as kids never resorted to hurting animals. letterboxes, ants nests, model planes and boats – think viking burial on lake ginninderra, blazing boat with enough bungers to well and truly sink it… This was fun.

Agreed. It seems it was much more fun to destroy inanimate objects rather than hurting animals unnecessarily.

#18 Peewee Slasher (newbie). Welcome and thank you for the most entertaining thread. I hope you keep coming back. That was a great read

funny thing is that we as kids never resorted to hurting animals. letterboxes, ants nests, model planes and boats – think viking burial on lake ginninderra, blazing boat with enough bungers to well and truly sink it… This was fun.

We always paid attention to what we were doing and made sure the fuse was long enough for a hasty retreat.

Then, in the space of a year, some of my mates started doing the dumb things. lighting crackers and throwing them at people. blowing holes in their own buttocks after not paying attention to whether the green bunger was lit, and putting it in their back pocket.

This was due to a couple of things – we were able to buy them at the store, even though we were only 12, our parents really didn’t know where we were or what we were doing, and some of the parents at the firework parties had crackers that beggared belief. Being able to turn a stormwater drain lid to dust was pretty impressive, watching the smoke curl out of the drains down the street was pretty good as well. red smoke, from memory. really don’t think that one was legal, even back then.

these days, I don’t mind the crackers going off in the suburbs, as long as they are supervised by a sober adult – who keeps the kids well away from the action. shame is, there don’t seem to be many adults staying sober at parties.

John Hargreaves’ reasoning behind preventing anybody from having fun is provided here.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/02/2586886.htm

Basically it boils down to “Someone targetted my cat ten years ago, nobody can have any fireworks, because its the fireworks that are the problem, not the people who used them on animals.”

Ceej1973 said :

Peewee Slasher said :

There’s an exploding mail boxes thread? OMG!

Yep. Dont be tricked by the “deezagood”. Its a Riotact blogger worm that mutates a virus and places it in your personal email inbox, then self destructs upon opening!

LOL*

Skidbladnir said :

When can I use consumer fireworks?
You can only use fireworks during the Saturday and Sunday of the Queen’s Birthday long weekend between 5pm and 9pm.
It is an offence to use fireworks at any other time. The maximum penalty is $3000.

If that wasn’t supposed to be serious it would be funny. Those times are treated as a mere guideline, at best.

Eight hours of fireworks over a two day weekend period is definitely workable.

Trouble is it’s never just 2 x 4hrs between 5-9pm is it? No, it’s 24 hours or more spread over the Friday-Monday four day period, often well into the early morning.

Not to mention the damage to domestic and commercial/school property that takes place.

Peewee Slasher said :

There’s an exploding mail boxes thread? OMG!

Yep. Dont be tricked by the “deezagood”. Its a Riotact blogger worm that mutates a virus and places it in your personal email inbox, then self destructs upon opening!

There’s an exploding mail boxes thread? OMG!

You should probably copy your post and pop it onto the exploding mail boxes thread too …

Great post peewee – a terrific read, you have the great writing style (and it is always interesting to hear the counter-perspective)!

As a seasoned letter box operative (in my youth, many decades ago), I bring an understanding to the issue, not usually heard.

Fireworks that blow up things are great; for kids (normally boys). My limitations stopped at inanimate objects. Oh, the good old days, when blowing up Mr Grumpys letterbox filled me with a sense of justified revenge. Or, Mrs “Old Cackling Witch” who continually sneered at my social upbringing, (I may be confused; I think that may have been Mrs “Snooty Nose”. My brain is addled from the gunpowder fumes). Her letterbox exploded in just right manner, radially. some letterboxes just blew the top or blew the bottom out. A full on radial explosion was joy. Happy, happy, joy, joy. My friends father, an old retired boilermaker, decided to make his letterbox out of checkerplate steel. At that time, the most powerful cracker was a “fourpenny banger”. He ended up with the entire nieghbourhoods crackers in his letterbox because it wouldn’t blow apart.
Sort of ironic, ain’t it?

Mr Thatcher’s (just think British Prime Minister) letterbox was a victory. He would guard the little strip of lawn outside his home everyday. If you got caught riding on it, it was certian death. He even planted his rose bushes alongside the front fence with high strung horizontal wire to stop the mik boy (ask your parents to explain) jumping the fence. The milk boy had to run (read walk) down the driveway and place the milk bottles on the step – quietly! I and my accomplice launched our paramilitary attack. Running away, my mate peed himself with laughter, how uncouth.

I’ve chosen not to talk about the handmade matchstick letterbox made by an orphaned boy who was constrained to a wheelchair. It doesn’t normally make people laugh,well some.

The climax to the campaign came when another accomplice who shall forever remain unnamed, decided to firebomb a house by dropping the crackers down the chimney. Hmmm, enough said. That incident is more reflective of todays happenings.

As I understand it. the fireworks that are sold legally in the ACT for this weekend, are benign displays that may cause a neighbour some annoyance. The mortar like detonations that occur at 1 or 2 in the morning are not sold legally. So, I’m not against the small scale fireworks. Oh, I don’t buy them, it’s just not as much fun anymore.

The government should be prosecuting the people who sell explosives that really can and do harm people. (Ain’t age grand? It allows me to change the story as I go along)

Now, I always have given creedence to karma. When I first came to Canberra in 1987, I went to get the mail and my leterbox was gone – to three seperate locations across the road. I didn’t hear a thing in the night (probably industrial dafness caused in my youth). I was very complacent about it. Karma – it came to visit me. Now, i’m really worried about those other things in my youth.

PS: Another time, another place (B.F)

Sparklers and those expanding snake things.

Anyone know if there is some kind of “This is what you can buy\These are the packagaes available” guide online?
Apparently I now have family with their army of young boys coming to town on the Queen’s Birthday weekend. 🙁

Aren’t illegal fireworks made int he same factory by the same factories?
Just that they aren’t legal in Australia is all?

Skidbladnir said :

I’m amazed that the solution to dealing with the issue of a minority of Canberrans increasing their usage of illegal fireworks is to make more fireworks illegal.

Bless you and your circular logic, Canberra.

skid,

at least they haven’t banned them altogether. wait for the sparkler bans after person gets superficial burn from hot end of sparkler… sometimes this place is so lame…

I’m amazed that the solution to dealing with the issue of a minority of Canberrans increasing their usage of illegal fireworks is to make more fireworks illegal.

Bless you and your circular logic, Canberra.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

are you sure you want illegals?

Hang on, let me check my Magic 8 Ball.

Yes. Yes, I do.

you could build your own – they would have the same reaction when they go radically wrong…

are you sure you want illegals?

Hang on, let me check my Magic 8 Ball.

Yes. Yes, I do.

By the way, from http://www.ors.act.gov.au/WorkCover/pdfs/DangSubs/Guides/ConsFireworkBrochure.pdf

When can I be supplied with consumer fireworks?
You can only be supplied with consumer fireworks between 8am on the Friday immediately before, and 5pm on the Sunday of, the Queen’s Birthday long weekend.

When can I use consumer fireworks?
You can only use fireworks during the Saturday and Sunday of the Queen’s Birthday long weekend between 5pm and 9pm.
It is an offence to use fireworks at any other time. The maximum penalty is $3000.

Who can use my consumer fireworks?
The only people allowed to use your consumer fireworks are:
• the person named as the authorised person on the receipt
• anyone under the direct supervision of the person named as the authorised person on the receipt.

If you use a consumer firework without authorisation you
may be guilty of a serious offence.
The maximum penalty for using a firework without authorisation is $75,000, imprisonment for 3 years or both.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

Forget legal fireworks. I want illegal fireworks 🙁

woody, I have seen the effects of the legal fireworks used incorrectly, are you sure you want illegals? at least the legal fireqworks are assembled fairly well…

Forget legal fireworks. I want illegal fireworks 🙁

deezagood- I see your point, I shall also add doctors to my list (even though doctors aren’t relly all that vocal in the media when it comes to the debate over banning fireworks)

cantanga said :

ChrisinTurner said :

Unfortunately, a few people going ‘nuts’ are going to make fireworks illegal for everyone.

Well them and the RSPCA, pet owners, some old people who have nothing better to do then whinge, politicians,smurfs and those damn hippies. It unfortunatly seems that there are more and more people jumping on the ban them bandwagon.

Cantanga – I honestly have no strong opinion about fireworks either way, as we are minimally directly impacted (we keep our dogs inside, use earplugs on firecracker weekends and are yet to have our letterbox blown up, but expecting that this may happen soon). I can see the rational argument against them though. Have a chat to any of the staff that work in the ER over firecracker weekend and you may actually see a different side to the story – lots of burn victims, lots of hurt kids etc… It was these types of injuries that made other states ban firworks in the first place. It really isn’t just the oldies, hippies and dog-lovers; I think a lot of people are questioning whether or not it is really worth it (from a cost-benefit equation perspective). I personally won’t be sad to see them go, nor will I be particularly bothered if they stay … until my letterbox gets blown up that is.

(From the CT article)
“It will be the last time Canberrans will be able to buy fireworks in the ACT if Labor MLA John Hargreaves succeeds with his plan to make cracker night illegal.
He said Canberrans were divided on the issue of fireworks.
The polling shows Canberrans are either 49 or 51 per cent for the ban.”

On the other hand, Canberrans are either 51% or 49% in favour of keeping fireworks, implying an even 50-50 split, and a 1% margin of error, for a 95% confidence interval, which requires a poll sample of about 10,000 people.

(Its been a while since I did statistics, but I do remember that margins of error are a diminishing return on sample size.)

Thankyou Canberra Times, and Ewa Kretowicz, for not questioning statistics provided by a Government prettymuch defined by lack of proper consultation, so that you are producing exactly the kind of spin they are trying to play.

Oh and as for when they go on sale, if it is still the same as last year then not until one or two days beforehand

ChrisinTurner said :

Unfortunately, a few people going ‘nuts’ are going to make fireworks illegal for everyone.

Well them and the RSPCA, pet owners, some old people who have nothing better to do then whinge, politicians,smurfs and those damn hippies. It unfortunatly seems that there are more and more people jumping on the ban them bandwagon.

They are obviously illegally already on sale for the idiots who set fire to two AustraliaPost letterboxes last weekend. Unfortunately, a few people going ‘nuts’ are going to make fireworks illegal for everyone. A few years ago my wife, who was very ill from chemotherapy, suffered a bad shock caused by idiots throwing bungers from their second floor apartment at pedestrians. The police were there quickly but only gave them a caution.

I saw the first ad of the season on TV last night, it said they go on sale 8am Friday. However, you can’t asplode them until Saturday night. I thought last year we could go nuts on Friday as well???