I just looked at the poll on this website. It isn't scientific but 84% in the poll want reasonable laws that allow for Class-C fireworks in Wyoming to be legal in Utah as long as they are not shot in highly populated neighborhoods or in a dry, fire hazard area like above 1200 East in Logan and so in. Seams reasonable to me! My personal safety in the matter is my own business, not the State's business!
I think the following statement from http://www.fireworksalliance.org says it all...
"The history behind the Fireworks Alliance is an example of what can be done when adversity and opportunity combine to address a legacy of regulation and uncertainty. For several decades, fireworks and model rocketry in the United States have been under attack. Starting with the elimination of large firecrackers in the 1960's, the imposition of strict limits on consumer fireworks in the 1970's, and severe fireworks and rocketry regulations in nearly every State, the ability of American citizens to enjoy fireworks and rocketry legally has become a difficult proposition. Despite polls that show a clear majority of Americans support the right to purchase and use legal consumer fireworks, a small but vocal minority has been very effective in regulating or eliminating fireworks in many jurisdictions.
While the ability to enjoy consumer fireworks has been curtailed, the situation is much worse for hobbiests that want build their own fireworks or model rockets. Despite the science, chemistry, and engineering that is required to learn how to build these items, many States have enacted outright bans on building fireworks, and penalties for this activity have increased to draconian levels. Under today's laws, Homer Hickam (the inspiration behind the movie October Sky) would have been sent to prison if he had built the same rockets that were shown in the movie "October Sky". As a matter of fact, nearly half of the discoveries in energetic chemistry in the twentieth century would have resulted in criminal prosecution if they been discovered over the past twenty years.
As a country, Americans have prided themselves on innovation and freedom. However, with the imposition of the "Safe Explosives Act", it is now impossible for a high school student to build a high powered rocket legally. And while many people cite safety concerns in a continuing escalation of regulation, the fact is that fireworks have a better safety record than many everyday activities, including bicycles, football, soccer, baseball, fishing, boating, driving cars, rock climbing, parachuting, water skiing, and dozens of other common activities.
The Fireworks Alliance was originally conceived by Dave Stoddard as a direct result of his experience in building software to support grassroots advocacy organizations. Dave owned a company that provided software and database consulting for several associations downtown in Washington, DC. Nearly all of Dave's clients needed help developing and maintaining membership systems that had political advocacy features in them. These systems allowed members of the organization to use tools to send pre-scripted letters to elected officials on specific issues. For example, guns owners want to tell congress to stop regulating guns, while environmentalists want to tell congress to block oil drilling in Alaska. All of these associations were groups of Americans that were practicing democracy through the Internet.
In November 2004, Dave Stoddard submitted a proposal to a client to develop a new political advocacy system. To make a long story short, the client decided to go with an off-the-shelf package from another company. By this time, it was late November 2004, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) had turned to regulating the chemicals that were are used to make fireworks and model rockets. Dave reasoned that if he financed the construction of his own political advocacy system, he could probably bring in more clients, and he would have a tool that could be used to organize the fireworks and rocketry communities into a grassroots organization. After all, Dave understood first-hand how political advocacy works in Washington, DC, he had experience with several systems, and he knew what needed to be done to build a really powerful system.
The only issue was cost -- in order to be successful with this project, Dave knew that he would have to devote all his effort, seven days a week, 16 hours a day, to make this a reality. It also meant that he would be unemployed while he worked on the project. Dave discussed it with his wife, and a week later I had obtained a fifty thousand dollar loan from the equity in his home to finance the project.
Like many people, Dave was optimistic about what he could do. However, by the end of June 2005, all he had working was the membership portion of the application, along with some basic political advocacy features that could determine who your elected officials were, and the ability to send email messages to officials. Dave decided it would be a good idea to launch the system in its basic form, and then continue to write code to flush out the remaining features in subsequent months.
On July 1, Dave asked the Fireworks Foundation if he could install the new advocacy system on their site. John Steinberg, a Trustee for the foundation, explained that the Fireworks Foundation charter did not support membership. After discussing the situation with John Steinberg and Harry Gilliam (Skylighter), Harry suggested creating another organization while they sorted out the issues, and recommended the name the Fireworks Alliance. One June 2, the Fireworks Alliance was announced, and it received approximately 180 signups in two days.
Dave continued to work on the software, but by September he had run out of money. He took out another $35,000 in equity from his home and continued the project. When the PGI learned about this, they provided a grant of $3000, the Fireworks Foundation kicked in $2000, and the law firm of Brooke and Mawhorr contributed $500. Dave had hoped to be done in early October, but the mail array subsystem became increasingly complex, and application security needed to be built into much of the existing code. Dave also had to build support for multiple servers and application scaling. It was technically challenging and a great deal or work to complete.
Dave told John Steinberg and Harry Gilliam that he would be done no later than New Years Eve, but bugs and other nits kept him burning the midnight oil until the end of January. Software can be very difficult to build right, and the bigger the system gets, the harder it becomes to estimate. As of April 2006, the application contains close to 100 programs, 3.2 million records in the database tables, five database schemas, and over a quarter million lines of code.
Dave demoed the system for Harry Gilliam on February 15, and demoed the system for John Steinberg and Tom Handle on March 21. There are many powerful features that make this application unique among political advocacy systems, and the Fireworks Alliance will use these features while we build membership in the organization and petition law makers.
With a little conservation, Dave managed to make the second equity loan on his house last until April 1, 2006. In mid-April he managed to secure another $50,000 loan against the equity in his home, and now has invested a total of $135,000 in this project, plus what ever he gave up in income when he dropped his previous clients to work on this project in November 2004. It has not been easy, but Dave is convinced this system will make a siginificant contribution to saving fireworks and may even allow us to repeal many of the regulations that were enacted when the fireworks community did not have a vioce.
As a membership organization, Dave realized the Fireworks Alliance needed strong, experienced leadership with deep industry experience if the alliance was going to have any chance of being successful. As such, Dave asked John Steinberg if he would serve as Executive Director of the Fireworks Alliance, and John graciously accepted. Dave also asked Tom Handle to be Director of Communications, and Tom also accepted. Dave continues to serve on the board as a political advocacy specialist and software architect.
The board of the Fireworks Alliance had its first meeting on Saturday, April 15. The board went over a substantial amount of material, and the Fireworks Alliance will need a great deal of help from the fireworks and rocketry communities. The first priority is to build our membership, because the larger our membership is, the more congress will listen to us. If you have not joined the Fireworks Alliance, please do so today (its free). Your voice may make the difference between saving fireworks, rocketry, and amateur science for future generations, instead of relegating these activities into the dust bin of history." |