existentialmemes
Alright, I’m going to launch explosives around your house. For several hours. Yes it is dangerous and terrible for wildlife and the environment. And yes your pets will get sick from eating the debris and you will feel terrorized inside your own home.
No you can’t opt out of it. Everyone is doing it and frankly it’s weird that you don’t want to.
No you can’t be the one launching the explosives you need a license for that. You can however launch these marginally smaller ones though. Yeah just whenever you want. 2am sounds great.
So anyway, fireworks were a mistake and it’s never too early to start reminding you of that.
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What if it was in the rainy season instead
Take it up with Guy Fawkes then.
This sounds like a grumpy old man ranting about “kids these days” lol let people have their fun.
Let children lose fingers and get blinded.
Let people have their peace and quiet.
If you want that deeply to be away from people, go live deep in the woods for something.
But I don’t want to be away from people? I just don’t want bombs going off outside my house, which is generally considered normal 364 days out of the year
Living around other people involves them doing things you don’t want them to sometimes.
Careful dude. The folk on here really don’t like being told that
Counterpoint
Playing with fire and blowing things up is fun if done responsibly. Really, given the kinds of annoyances that are legal year-round (drunkards, loud exhausts, barking dogs, late-night parties, yelling loudly etc.), it really isn’t that bad to have fire & explosions once per year for like… two hours. (Reiterating, responsibly)
One night a year… Heh. It’s been going on for a month already at my sisters’ place
I don’t know about The North Americas, but in AU all of those things you listed are illegal here. Except the loud exhaust. You have to really piss someone off to get reported, but if your dog barks every night you’ll get a knock on the door with a mandatory dog training leaflet. Disruptive parties at night are tolerated occasionally by neighbours, but if it happens every Friday for 6 hours you might get told to turn it down by police. Same with belligerent or disorderly behaviour. I think the law is don’t wake people up between 7pm–7am mon–sat. But also the police here won’t attack you, so it’s more annoying than dangerous for the recipient.
Do you guys have noise disruption laws like this? Genuinely curious.
We do, but it takes more than fireworks.
Yeah fireworks are allowed here too, but only when you would “expect” fireworks if that makes sense. “Firework displays and community events” are exempt. I think it’s pretty common sense whether something’s ok or not though. Like randomly popping off fireworks every night at 2am would get shut down. Definitely an entire month of fireworks is insanity. But I hear fireworks every major holiday like Easter, Christmas, new year’s, Chinese New year, etc. The dogs, cats, birds, possums, everything goes mad like there’s a bush fire.
I love fireworks! I like going to the big displays, I like hearing neighbors setting them off in the distance. It reminds us that even thought things kinda suck now, we can still have some fun.
This country has turned so rigid, it is so disappointing. No loud music, no firewoeks, no dance clubs, no outward displays of anything. Just go home buy stuff online and watch your screens quietly.
Oh honey. You think it’s for 2 hours? It’s roughly once an hour from the middle of June to the middle of July
I love this time of year. It drowns out the sound of gunfire.
fr, oh to live such a privileged life that the worst noise pollution you have to deal with is fireworks a couple of times per year.
Where do you live? That’s excessive.
Worst I’ve seen in rural Michigan, is occasional fireworks the week before and after the 4th.
Now that I’m in the suburbs? Maybe a day before and after. Eh, could be worse.
Kansas baby, deep red territory. It sucks here lmao
Doesn’t have to be deep red. Sacramento is fairly purple and they’ve been at it too. Same as every year.
Well, that’s how it is in my country, and mostly respected outside no-go zones :)
Slightly different per municipality, but in general it’s permitted 23-01 around the new year. Outside that, you need to apply to the police for permission.
Agreed, but it is interesting to hear about its impact on the environment. Obviously it spooks pets and livestock. But what is it doing to the local flora and fauna? In some situations it probably kills birds through constant stress. And what about trees that are normally used to peace and quiet? They’re probably deaf now.
Usually agreed, but July 5th I’ll be shopping for some discounted boomies.
They will be on stand by to celebrate a long overdue deposition when the day finally fucking comes.
What if it happens on the 4th? America 250 indeed.
Fireworks start early then I guess
A few winters ago, I took a trip to Iceland, specifically Reykjavik. I learned that, for new year’s, there is an organized party well outside the city limits with no fireworks. This was for folks that didn’t want to participate in the usual celebrations that take place in town. They noted that it was quite popular with the Syrian refugees on the island. I think about that a lot.
I’ll add that NYE Fireworks in Iceland make American Independence Day celebrations look like a solemn funeral in comparison. I’ve never been anywhere that has been shelled, but I now have a really good idea what that would look and sound like.
I’d happily see consumer fireworks banned. If people like them so much then there are plenty of organized displays which have way better shit than you can buy at Walmart, and I know roughly when they’re happening so I can turn the TV up loud, close my windows and keep my pets from being too traumatized.
What I can’t stand is the random 3AM explosions that sounds like the start of WWIII. If you’re one of those people, fuck you. Sincerely.
I promise you if that ban happened people will buy gun powder and build their own. Now they’re more dangerous and made in Jimmy’s garage
You may say ban blackpowder, but then you run into the 2nd amendment lobby
Idiots making home-made explosives sounds like a problem that can solve itself eventually.
Well, you could always be the reason they get banned… just gota get creative with it?
My first dog was so chill that he didn’t give a single fuck about fireworks or thunder. He’d sleep right through it. Even before he went deaf. I swear he was just a dude who got turned into a dog or something because nothing about the human world seemed to bother him.
I don’t enjoy fireworks. Maybe if it was like the year 1600 and I’d never seen color and light it’d be really cool. But we have high definition Tv now.
I also don’t get why anyone films them. We have so many videos of fireworks as a species. Like we have the whole phenomena comprehensively documented, we’re good.
Yeah, but that’s almost everything. I see tourist taking shitty pics of things that have been documented millions of times while their family stands next to them. I’m like, “Get them in the picture!” If you want it to mean anything.
Ok, this bums me out. I love fireworks and the 4th of July. I have such fond memories of it as a kid and am building memories with my own kiddos. Our whole neighborhood gets together and sets them off, and grills and hangs out. It is a whole (wholesome) thing.
Doesn’t change the fact that it’s bad for the environment and animals, and it’s a fuck to of noise polution.
There’s plenty of fireworks that aren’t a problem. Fountains and Spinners and sparklers are rad as hell, and honestly as a kid I hated the ones that are just really loud for no reason
Those are mostly what we do. No fire crackers. My kiddos are autistic, so ear protection is a must, just in case there is a loud one. But they love it and are even starting to love the louder ones as they get older.
All the cool smaller stuff was banned long ago in the UK. ‘Items of Erratic Flight’ including all the ground spinners, helicopters, bottle rockets etc. The consumer stuff these days is so boring. What would’ve made so much more sense is to keep the smaller ‘novely’ type fireworks that are typically relatively low-noise, and much better suited to the relatively small gardens here.
Instead we have these relatively powerful cakes that should have a 25m safety radius that almost nobody actually has in their garden.
Many countries have a unique style of firework making that is part of their cultural heritage, ours is almost completely lost as everything is imported from China now, we outsource the danger of production to child labour in Luiyang. Its a sad state of affairs.
Once again, a few assholes ruining it for everyone else …
Our whole neighborhood
Even the pets? The people with PTSD?
I mean, it is a small neighborhood. 🤷 There are pets, but they appear u bothered. My dog, for example, has no idea they are happening. The hot dogs on the other hand…
Why would you feel terrorized in your house?
PTSD is a thing
I was so annoyed when NJ finally went and allowed fireworks in public hands. Now instead of having nice controlled by the township level shows with professionals, I get dipshit down the street setting them off and causing every dog to go batshit. And because anyone can buy fireworks, no one donates to the township show so we don’t even get to see the nice show anymore.
Launching fireworks had been banned in Kyiv for the last few years, for hopefully obvious reasons.
At least one good thing has come from it.
Every year for a dozen years our dog would get so traumatized by fireworks that you could literally hear her teeth chattering. We’d turn up loud music in the house, and make her a bed in a closet, but she’d still bolt out and look for anywhere where it was less noisy or safer (there wasn’t such a place, but we couldn’t convince her of that). She’d jump into the bathtub or claw her way into a different closet, only to bolt away to find a better spot at the next explosion. And neighbors would light off the occasional firework until like 2 or 3 in the morning. We couldn’t go off and leave her. I grew to really hate the 4th.
She died a couple months ago, so I guess that’s no longer a problem for us personally, but I know we aren’t the only ones with sensitive pets.
I know someone who used to literally move and go on vacation with their dog to a quieter place during fireworks season… Poor things
I can understand that. We had two dogs, three cats, and two birds - so that was harder to do.
Xanax. It’s a good thing.
Benadryl if you can’t get none. Plus the other stuff you mentioned.
Benadryl, or diphenhydramine hcl, doesn’t really help much for stress. It’s true that it can make dogs sleepy, and if given soon enough before the fireworks they may sleep through them. The problem is that some dogs have the opposite reaction and become hyperactive. Hyperactive and stressed will just make for a bad evening for everyone.
It is best to talk to your vet in the days before the fireworks start. A prescription is likely to be a better option for your pet. Talking to your vet first will also help to make sure you get the dosing right for your dog.
Tried Benadryl and it didn’t help. Didn’t want to do anything to strong, but maybe should have. Doesn’t matter any longer.
Just because society is okay with it, doesn’t make all the issues miraculously go away.
Air quality is shit for a long while after displays, especially if you live within view of multiple displays.
Plastic waste and other garbage leaving just from the display alone, to say nothing of the crowds that gather for them.
Animal life around the displays get to deal with the sounds and percussion types that literally gave ww1 soldiers ptsd. They are also animals and have no idea what’s happening. Wildlife nearby gets screwed over every 4th. Not to mention animals with sensitive hearing like dogs. Hell, I live many miles and hills away from the closest display I could find with my drone last year, yet my dog was still terrified.
Sorry if that’s being a party popper, but at one point in time, public executions were considered entertainment and I’m sure there were a few party poopers who pointed out how barbaric it was. It didn’t make them wrong to point it out.
My MIL…
