Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Posted on 07/03/2006 11:59:22 PM PDT by freepatriot32
WASHINGTON - On the eve of the nation's noisiest holiday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission responded to growing fireworks injuries by quietly reopening the question of how it should police explosives for backyard entertainment.
Without a public meeting, the three commissioners voted unanimously by ballot late Friday to begin a study of whether to tighten their regulation of fireworks, commission spokesman Scott Wolfson announced Monday. Their notice seeking public comment will appear soon in the Federal Register.
The notice cited a disturbing increase in injuries and a decrease in compliance with safety regulations as reasons for the first major review of commission fireworks regulations since 1976.
"It's worth pursing an effort to see how we can once again drive down injuries," Wolfson said.
The commission's only Democrat, Thomas H. Moore, criticized the panel for acting by private ballot. "The commission's deliberations are supposed to be done in public," Moore said. "We do not serve the public well when we take the first step in a possible rule-making in this manner."
The commission's just-released study of fireworks injuries in 2005 estimated 10,800 people required emergency room treatment. That figure has risen steadily since an estimated 8,000 required treatment in 2002.
The figures show a small but steady rise in firework injuries compared with the nation's growing population: from 2.6 injuries per 100,000 people in 1996 to 3.6 per 100,000 in 2005 _ a decade in which the use of fireworks soared.
A special commission study estimated that 60 percent of last year's injuries occurred within two weeks of the July Fourth holiday, when most of the nation's backyard fireworks are exploded. Children accounted for a substantial share of the victims: 45 percent of the victims were under 15 and more than half were under 20.
At the same time, the commission's sampling of imported fireworks found a sharp drop last year in compliance with its safety regulations. From 2002 through 2004, 71 percent to 73 percent of imported fireworks complied with federal regulations, but in 2005 that figure plunged to 59 percent.
Most fireworks are imported, mostly from China, which supplied $164.2 million of the total $172.5 million worth imported in 2004.
The panel did not promise to issue new rules but said it would consider requiring manufacturers to test their products and certify they comply with safety requirements; adding new requirements that fireworks must meet; continuing a largely voluntary safety program; or banning some devices case-by-case.
The commission's mandatory regulations are far less extensive than voluntary ones issued by the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory. The lab, founded in 1989 by the fireworks industry, is governed by a board representing companies that manufacture or import fireworks.
For instance, the AFSL sets maximum powder limits to regulate the power of explosives intended for consumers. The federal commission has no such limits.
AFSL executive director John Rogers said the lab has added standards as dozens of new products have been introduced since 1976, but the commission's rules have changed little since then.
Without predicting a response to a notice his group hasn't seen, Rogers said it has long thought the commission should adopt AFSL's voluntary standards as mandatory. "Our standards are far more comprehensive and far-reaching than CPSC's and by adhering to ours, fireworks would be safer and have less potential for injury."
The commission said manufacturers certified as complying with AFSL standards fared much better in its survey of imports. Some 83 percent of those fireworks were in compliance with federal rules, compared with 59 percent of all imported fireworks sampled last year.
Julie Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association, an industry trade group, said, "We do see a need to extend compliance more broadly in China."
The commission and AFSL have made fireworks substantially safer since 1976, while usage soared from 29 million pounds in 1976 to 118 million pounds in 1996 and 281.5 million pounds last year, Heckman said. The rate of injury has plummeted from 38.3 injuries per 100,000 pounds of fireworks in 1976, to 6.1 in 1996 and to 3.6 in 2005.
"The product coming into the United States now for backyard use is the highest quality and safest it's ever been," Heckman said.
The largest safety problem is product misuse rather than product failures, Heckman said. "It's teenagers having bottle rocket wars, parents giving sparklers to 2-year-olds and people having too much to drink and putting firecrackers up their nose."
___
On the Net:
Consumer Product Safety Commission:
http://www.cpsc.gov
American Pyrotechnics Association:
http://www.americanpyro.com/
nanny state ping
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Nanny statism isn't freedom.
It makes you wonder why there's never been a successful anarchist or libertarian state.
A quick Google search will turn up not just one, but several, videos of teenagers shooting bottle rockets out their butt.
LOL. Hey, y'all, hold muh beer and watch this!
These lard ass Feds oughtta FOAD.
Trotting out more "victims" in order to abridge the freedom of non-victims everywhere.
Apparently, the voluntary standards worked.
Jenny for President!
Imagine what a fine job they'd do on fireworks after the magnificant work they did on Katrina?
Let's just give up state's rights and local controls and let these genius's fix every thing.
NOT!
BWAHAHAHAHA! I mean, uh, thanks, you too.
My fireworks come from Remington, Federal and Winchester.
bump...
I heard you were cool.
Uncle Sam, in a baby carriage, being pushed by a huge, fat, overbearing Nanny:
Nanny: "You smoke too much! You drink too much! You eat too much!"
Sam: ( rummaging through his suitcoat ) "Where'd I put my pistol?"
Okay, where did you get that video? what exactly is happening there?
I miss MacNeilly!
He was first featured ( much as Dave Barry was ) in my local paper before he came to national attention.
Two cartoons I saved and remember:
1)- a brooding, odious Keep, sewage pouring out of pipes sticking out of it, and a Soviet flag flying... the voice-over in the balloon above it, "I'm getting worried about our image..."
2)- the Ayatollah Komeni riding and oxcart named "Iran" over a hill... and the sign by the road reads:
"Leaving 20th Century
Please Dim Lights"
PIMF ( preview, it's mah friend... )
And our taxdollars actually pay for this garbage. Pathetic.
Seems to me that when the population increases, the number of people born stupid increases. Therefore more injuries . Just ban stupid people and everything will be OK ! Ban all fireworks and the homemade BIG bangs will increase in direct proportion.
Awww heck... we did that alot back when I was young.
We were country boys who knew enough to put plenty of distance between you and your opponent.
No one was ever injured. Just clean fun.
Agreed!
Problem is there is just too damn many of them. ; )
When liberty is outlawed only outlaws will have liberty
Some day, hopefully, our legislators will realize that it is impossible to legislate stupidity. That may not happen because most of our legislators are too stupid to recognize stupidity.
I have to tell you...the first thought that came to my mind when I read your post was, "What neuro-synaptic chain of events would possess FreedomCalls to put together a certain string of words into the google search box that would return pictures of bottle-rockets eminating from the rear-ends of teenagers?"
After a moment, I realized that I did not want to know.
Nanny State Ping..............
Happy Birthday America.
It's time for them to go...
Good thing the Republicans are in charge, or we might see a lot of stifling government regulation. :-P
I know someone else mentioned it, but it seems to me that this disproves the Commission's attitude regarding an increasein injuries. By the numbers that maybe so, as the ppulation has increased since 1976. However by percentage of the population it seems to me there are many other things in life far more dangerous than dealing with fireworks.
"It's teenagers having bottle rocket wars, parents giving sparklers to 2-year-olds and people having too much to drink and putting firecrackers up their nose."
Around here, we just call that "thinning the herd." ;)
Well gosh. The only thing that's going to fix that is...more regulations, by golly!
That's because a gentle society goes through great measures to protect the stupid from themselves. These people used to delete themselves from the gene pool. Now, they're reproducing like rabbits.
Same here.
Probably not. Here in NY fireworks are illegal, but if you aren't doing anything excessive the police will almost always just give you a "warning" and tell you not to wake the neighbors who called to complain.
Greatest political cartoonist of all time, IMO.
So when is election day for members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission? I don't recall voting for these people.
This permits them to avoid taking unpopular stances and keeps their pudgy backsides safe from retribution from the voters.
The voters should demand an end to these panels and boards but most are too stupid to realize that their freedom has been diminished and their lives are run by an unelected authoritarian group of dictators.
You can't have a little bit of a Nanny State. Government knows best in so many areas, why not add fireworks to the list?
Thanks for the ping!
Ahhhh...memories.
Our idea of a safe bottle rocket war was using aluminum garbage can lids as shields.
It's more like: Big Mother is Watching You.
Unfortunately, nanny staters seem to be gaining in power, not losing it. Even so-called conservatives seem to be jumping on the nanny state band wagon, "for the public good."
Smoking bans, helmets, seat belts, fatty foods, alcohol, tree cutting restrictions, fuel mileage mandates, airbags, seat belts, ever rising taxes on certain "sinful" items, the list goes on and on.
Sometimes, I don't think they will wake up until they are totally under the socialists thumb.
Oh, but there has been.
That would have been the United States of America from the date founded until about the mid-1920's
Which in my book is a good thing.
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