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Just as illegal firearms will never be controlled by gun laws, illegal fireworks will probably not be controlled by fireworks legislation. While those who skirt the law may be primarily responsible for catastrophes like the horrendous New Year’s event in Hawaii, the law itself may be partly to blame by encouraging hoarding of massive caches of fireworks to use and sell on the black market.
Just consider for a moment how legalizing ground-based fireworks for sale in small quantities to responsible law-abiding citizens might have avoided such a mass collection of fireworks by illegal sellers.
Similarly, gun laws mainly discourage law-abiding citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights, they do next to nothing in preventing criminals from possessing and using firearms. Effective law does not necessarily mean more laws.
Gerald Ching
Waialae Iki
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