This is my favorite fireworks story:
First, consider the recent events in Massachusetts, where anti-gun U.S. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II (“Little Joe”) injured one of his 16-year-old twin sons with fireworks during a July Fourth celebration at home.
Although the possession and use of fireworks is outlawed in Massachusetts, State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan said he would not seek charges against the congressman. COAN remarked, “We would classify this as an unfortunate accident.”
There is clearly a double standard at work here, because COAN is the same fire marshal who arrested carload after carload of Massachusetts residents returning on I-95 with fireworks bought in New Hampshire, where they are legal.
With the help of the Massachusetts State Police, the fire marshal “cuffed and stuffed” many possessors of fireworks as they crossed the state border into Massachusetts.
KENNEDY and his son MATTHEW were setting off fireworks on the beach outside the family’s Hyannisport compound when a device, described by KENNEDY aides as a “spark emitting firework” exploded prematurely.
MATTHEW was burned on his left forearm and taken to Cape Cod hospital. The young man was treated and released.
COAN said no law enforcement official witnessed the accident and the hospital did not report it to his office. Massachusetts law requires doctors and hospitals to report fireworks-related injuries to the fire marshal if they involve burns over more than 5 per cent of the body. However, MATTHEW’s injury was described as “minor.”
But is the hypocrisy involved here “minor”?
Congressman KENNEDY broke state law by possessing fireworks. He also used illegal fireworks in a reckless manner and thereby injured his son. State authorities, who had arrested numerous ordinary citizens for mere possession of illegal fireworks, winked, nodded and looked the other way.
Fireworks are explosive devices. Many fireworks contain chemical components that are also used in bombs, but fireworks lie outside the authority of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the federal agency charged with investigating incidents involving explosive devices. Thus, there will be no federal investigation into the KENNEDY fireworks incident.
At least one insider has told us that the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office and the Governor’s office have been asked by numerous concerned citizens to investigate the KENNEDY fireworks incident. State officials are not eager to pursue it.
Keep that in mind the next time a KENNEDY — Joseph, Patrick or Edward — tells their House and Senate peers how “irresponsible” gun owners are.
I suppose that fireworks may need to be banned in states where the citizens are too stupid to use them correctly. Like Massachusetts.
{Or anyway where their legislators sneeringly look down on them as too stupid}.