Things That go Whoosh and Boom Should Be Legal

Several years ago I wrote on the subject of fireworks in Virginia. At that time I asked four commonwealth attorneys what state code section applied. Two responded they could not find a section in the code stating fireworks were illegal. Two did not respond. I wrote that apparently fireworks WERE legal in Virginia.  A few weeks later one of the non-responder commonwealth attorneys responded with the code section stating they are illegal except for a few little wimpy imitation things that go pfftz instead of bang or boom.

The great news is that on Monday legislation was advanced from the Senate Committee on General Laws that would give localities the right to regulate fireworks.

What a great constitutional solution. Each locality can make a choice that will only affect that locality.  The only people who can possibly object to this change are those whose goal is to control the decisions of other people.

When the law passed that prevented all Virginians from celebrating Independence Day with the traditional fireworks that law was wrong. It is still wrong and it is time it is revised.

As the statesman Edmund Burke said, “Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”

Another issue is that any law that is not enforced is a bad law. Either it is not needed, poorly written or does not address a real concern. These “laws” teach contempt for the law and for the officers who attempt to enforce the laws.

When I wrote the original article on fireworks I believed and still believe that any law designed to protect me from me is a bad law. The American people have the legal and moral right to make their own choices. Even when those choices appear to be poor choices by the majority, all of us should make our own choices and suffer the rewards or consequences for those choices.

 Kudos to our local senators Sen. Frank Ruff and Sen. Thomas A Garrett, Jr. for supporting these corrections to a bad law.

Now I am going to go home and shoot off some illegal fireworks in their honor.

As I was verifying the Edmund Burke quote, I found other historical quotes regarding bad laws.

Here they are for your consideration.

The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. ~Frank Zappa

Men fight for freedom, then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves. ~Author Unknown

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws. ~Tacitus, Annals

The United States is the greatest law factory the world has ever known. ~Charles Evans Hughes

Somebody recently figured out that we have 35 million laws to enforce the ten commandments. ~Attributed to both Bert Masterson and Earl Wilson