Fireworks becoming an explosive issue all over America

Illegal fireworks are bursting in air from sea to shining sea.

In California, the city of Pasadena said fireworks complaints are up 400%.

In the past two months, New Yorkers lodged 4,862 complaints about fireworks, almost half of them concentrated in Brooklyn. Mayor Bill de Blasio said Brooklynites he spoke with tell him they set off the fireworks to blow off steam after being cooped up for most of the spring.

“Some said they were in their home for a few months, and this is just their way of having fun,” he reported. Those comments came one day after a video showed a homeless man being set on fire by a firework intentionally thrown on him. I guess it was just someone’s way of having fun.

In Boston, Mayor Marty Walsh said calls to police about illegal fireworks jumped 2,300% in May compared to the same period in 2019. He said some of the calls were originally for gunshots that turned out to be fireworks.

“This is a serious issue,” he said. “People are frightened. People are losing sleep. Babies and kids are woken up. Pets are terrified. Our veterans and others with PTSD are experiencing real harm, and it’s a real fire hazard in our city.”

And in Dayton, a guest columnist in Tuesday’s Daily News echoed those comments, declaring that sleep-deprived residents in her neighborhood are “fed up,” with the nightly amateur rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air.

It’s not clear who’s setting off all these fireworks. Or who’s paying for them. What is clear is that what they’re doing is illegal. Currently, Ohioans may purchase consumer grade fireworks but aren’t allowed to use them in Ohio and they must be taken out of the state within 48 hours. Which is like saying it’s legal to buy a bottle of vodka in Ohio on Tuesday, but you have to drive to Indiana by Thursday to drink it.

OK, so the law is dumb and widely disregarded. And I understand the need for people to let off steam, celebrate their patriotism or whatever excuse they need to justify their inconsideration. These are difficult times for all of us.

So to help the people who feel that loud noises are the only way to deal with them, I’d suggest the fed up residents of that sleep-deprived Dayton neighborhood should form a marching band. Then, before the dawn’s early light — or just as soon as the fireworks people, their children and their dogs have fallen asleep — the band could march past their houses and play every song that John Philip Sousa ever wrote, just as loudly as possible.

I’ll be happy to lend them a big bass drum.