I’m in favor of fireworks, regardless of social views, all other things being equal.  I think it’s okay for kids to take a few chances with them; the alternative is to put them in a carefully protected bubble world where they never learn why it’s dumb to throw firecrackers.  I think we are harmed more as a society by obsessive efforts to prevent kids from being stupid than by the stupidity itself.

What I do not quite get is what motivates people who live in a tinder-dry area to go out into the sagebrush high desert, or vacant lots that have reverted to same, and set off fireworks there.  I get why someone would detonate them in a large parking lot, or on an island in a lake, anywhere there is no potential for damage to others.  But explosions and fire in a desert (one with just enough dry cover to go all brushfire)? Really?