If there’s something more American than blowing stuff up, I have yet to find it. Yet our wise bueracrats here decided that in order to protect us from ourselves and our drunken trailer trash neighbors, the only legal fireworks are things such as sparklers. Even your common bottle rocket is banned.

You might ask than why do I see countless firework stands when I drive down the road? If you happen to go into any of those stands, I like the big tent on Northlake ironically in the Blood Bank parking lot, you will notice that after you purchase your glorious items they make you sign a piece of paper.

That piece of paper your signing is a waiver. What it says is that you are intending to use the fireworks for one of the “legal” purpose. These “legal” purposes include using them to scare birds from crops, quarry stone, or as a railroad signal. Now I’m sure that’s what all these people are using them for, a know I saw a huge group of birds circling my coconut crop this morning.

All the waiver does is make the store not responsible for the “illegal” acts that you fully intend to commit. They can claim ignorance. Its funny though that they need you to sign a waiver, while you can walk into any head shop and buy a 6 foot bong and its just assumed that its going to be for tobacco use.

If you are caught with your precious fireworks this year, it is considered a first degree misdemeanor and is punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail. They have got to be kidding with that whole year in a jail thing, remember that Donte Stallworth only got 30 days for DUI manslaughter.

I doubt that a whole lot of people are going to be enforcing it. Palm Beach Country Sheriff’s Office spokesman Ed Davis kinda summed up their n9nchalant attitude towards it when he said ““One thing about fireworks, when they go off, so does the evidence.”

There are some communities though that are trying to crack down on it. Loxahatchee Groves for instance has vowed to enforce the law and has even allocated funds specifically target to weed out this dangerous criminal element from their town.

I say its all in good fun so just relax all you uptight lawmakers. Sure people get hurt with fireworks but they do with anything that’s fun. I think more people get hurt in boating accidents every year than fireworks accidents, so lets go ahead and ban boating too. Its also ridiculous to let these store owners operate their way around the law and then even think about cracking down on people for shooting off their fireworks. Its like leaving the drug dealers alone and making only possession a crime.

So I say blow things up all night, blow things up all weekend. If your not blowing things up yourself, go seek out some people that are. It would be unAmerican not to.