Am I the only one who thinks the risks are worth the reward? People are celebrating, kids are having fun. Yes a few people blow their hands off, but are we going to remove everything, one by one, in the name of safety?

I have a beautiful memory from a summer night long ago, in Barceloneta on the evening of the summer solstice—the festival of Saint Joan [0]. I didn’t know it was coming, which was its own special sort of astonishment… walked in to eat dinner, walked out to a mountain of furniture on fire in the intersection, air thick with gunpowder smoke, bands of youths firing Roman candles at one other…

The specific image that comes to mind, though—I remember dozens upon dozens of ambulances lined up at the ready along the waterfront, their crews hanging out enjoying the madness until they would be called upon.

Having been raised in pretty cautious circles, that image struck me: the powers-that-be knew some proportion of bad stuff would happen. I figured that meant they’d “just make a law against it.” Instead of trying to stop it, though, they focused on preparedness and timely response.

Since then, of course, I’ve learned that The Law has a lot less raw power than I’d imagined against tradition and popular will…

Since then I’ve accepted as creed that the best and most human parts of life reach their most salient in the moments of paradox between principles. “Avoid safety risks” is correct, “living fully requires accepting risks” is also correct.

[0] https://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/events/sant-joan/...

Nope, completely with you on this. The logical conclusion of banning everything dangerous is everything in existence being banned. There are many things people do that I think are dumb or dangerous but that doesn't mean I think they should be banned from doing them.

I’m with you. I shoot off small fireworks for my kids and my immediate neighbor on our quiet street, and we have a neighbor a few doors down who invariably calls the cops. This has been going on since the 2000s when she moved in. If I’m fined, I just pay it.

"Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make" was supposed to be a comically evil statement in Shrek

Come on, it’s not a choice between complete anarchy and complete restriction.

It is very, very fair for society to be like “hm I think X activity is easy to abuse in a way that hurts innocent bystanders,” and then limits the activity to people with licenses and training or things like that.

Like no, it’s totally not cool to give a free pass to people who are putting other people’s lives and homes at risk. How would you feel if your house burned down because your neighbor did something stupid?

I don’t care if it’s just your own life at risk. But you’re essentially saying that people should be free to play around with explosive devices in dense city neighborhoods. Fuck no, it’s fucking concerning to have an explosion rattle your windows. The people most likely to do this shit in the streets have no clue what they’re doing.

You're not the only one. There are few things I hate more than safetyists.

I am fine with the professional fireworks shows but people setting fireworks inside residential areas, in all hours of night, for weeks during summer is just people being massive douchebags.

Like 10 people died in my state on the 4th. A few were not directly involved in celebrations but were just doing their own thing.

Does that really sound reasonable to you?