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Saturday, August 05, 2006
Ind. Law - "Sadly, the Legislature doesn't have a Stupid-O-Meter on which to test new laws"
The 2006 fireworks law changes are the subject of a column recently in the Munster (NW Indiana) Times by Phil Wieland headlined "Make state safe from Legislature." Some quotes:
Once again we have to fight the enemy there so we can be safe here. You just don't expect it to be the case when "there" is the Indiana General Assembly.The Valparaiso City Council fired the first "smarten up" bomb at the Legislature last week, passing a resolution asking what the heck those boneheads were smoking when they passed the law legalizing the sale of every explosive short of a nuke to anyone meeting the strict requirement of being physically capable of pulling the cash from their pockets to pay for them.
Well, it doesn't actually say that. Instead, the council wants the law tweaked to give municipalities some control over when and where the terrorists can set off their fireworks. The notion is to control it through the city's nuisance ordinance. Too bad we can't control the Legislature the same way.
Thanks to the new law, instead of worrying about a handful of al-Qaida or other bat-guano crazy fundamentalist fanatics blowing up the state, we now have the potential for 5.5 million fireworks fanatics blowing up the state. The difference is that we are probably safer from the al-Qaidas of the world than from the fireworks boneheads.
Terrorists are better trained and focused on particular targets. Fireworks boneheads basically know how to light a fuse. After that, it's easier to predict where the next asteroid will hit the Earth than where those exploding rockets will land.
According to Valparaiso Councilman John Bowker, the reason the legislators passed the law was that nobody spoke against it. Sadly, the Legislature doesn't have a Stupid-O-Meter on which to test new laws, and, even if it did, it would be no guarantee against stupid laws being approved.
The Valparaiso resolution doesn't ask that the state again ban the sale of fireworks. That's not likely because the law has a tax that provides the state with millions of dollars. The legislators do realize fireworks can be dangerous, so the tax will be used to build regional fire training centers. That's like legalizing crack but taxing it to build drug treatment centers * * *.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 5, 2006 09:28 AM
Posted to Indiana Law