AYRRGHHH. YRAHGDG. I hate fireworks.

[mmh]

i agree with against fireworks.

although there can be fun for some people at barbecues and stuff, if they were only available to licenced display teams it'd be alot better, every year stupid dickheads round my area get together and fire rockets at each other, and fire them at other people they see walking past, and innocent bystanders, EVERY YEAR.

what about a couple of years ago, there was a big thing with chavs putting them in cats asses and blowing the poor animals up!

granted there are people who genuinely do just want to put on a show, but there are alot more dickheads that just want to be ******s with them.

think how awesome fireworks displays would be if people couldnt get hold of fireworks and had to go to these events, there would be more money to spend on fireworks and would be more enjoyment from everyone.

basically, you have more gun powder in each of these fireworks than is what is in a .45 magnum round. so why cant u buy bullets over the counter anytime of the year, yet you can buy rockets from about september to january??

essentially you are giving people without firearms liscences the right to buy explosives!

f'in sucks in my honest opinion.

[Ricco]

It always comes down to "my rights" deosnt it? But cant you see... you do not have the right to risk / harm / injure someone else without their consent. You no not have the right to smoke infront of me and potentially give me lung cancer. If i want lung cancer, i will damn well go out and get it myself. You do not have the right to fire a firework at me when i am driving home after a hard days work, if i am going to crash, i want o crash of my own accord.

YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT!!!

Butuz

Did you read my post properly or are you tripping ?
Yes it does boil down to my rights, I have the right to celerbrate in the best way I choose too, with whome i want.
I have the right to freedome of expression.
I have the right to act responsibly -

Your points would mean everyone is potentialy irrosponsible - they are !
Hell lets lock everyone up as they are all potentialy murderers
Let's ban the sale of common household chemicals as they can be made into explosive, lets ban back-packs. lets stop trains. lets ban the use of anger....(see where I'm going). We can go too far you know.....

Now lets be practical>

Maybee we should ban the import of the sub-standard fireworks.
Maybe we should up the age limit to something more responsible.
IIRC you can't buy some glues unless your over 21 , so same should apply to fireworks.
I would even go as far as having to register where your 'private' displays are taking place, but you can bet the councils would just use it as a money making excercise.So lets try to keep it responsible and practicle

As for smoking - ban it period, or make them pay for their own medical expenses.
But thats not within the skope of this post.
(and those who smoke who argue about alchohol - we don't drink then pee in your face)

I will say this, once you start to remove the little rights of small people, then you slowly start to condition the people to accept more of their rights to be removed, until you have something thats generaly reffered to as 'Police State'

[windog]

Like so many things " that should be banned" the only thing that actually needs to be done is to implement the laws already in place!
After all. if you are over 18 and you still think throwing bangers is a good idea, you should already be in a closed institution anyway!

[Ricco]

well that would be a start, but up the age limit to be safe as I know for a fact that some hit 18 and still are not very mature.

You can tell by the cr@p they fit to thier cars and the way theyr dress

[windog]

well that would be a start, but up the age limit to be safe as I know for a fact that some hit 18 and still are not very mature.

You can tell by the cr@p they fit to thier cars and the way theyr dress

Yes but thats what I mean ....They obviously should be in a closed institution

[menthel]

I think they should be kept in organised displays personally. The majority of fireworks at the moment are not daft children, but diwali, with is monday or tuesday. Then again I went home to visit my parents the other day and idiotic children were letting off fireworks and one shot under my car. I think that anyone selling fireworks to kids should be shut down straight away. Grr. It almost winds me up as much as preaching vegetarians!

[G4Z]

As for smoking - ban it period, or make them pay for their own medical expenses.
But thats not within the skope of this post.
(and those who smoke who argue about alchohol - we don't drink then pee in your face)

Ricco, I agree with what your saying tbh, even though I hate being woken up by some stupid charv with an airbomb. However I have to take exception to that comment, Im sorry but in general Alcohol causes easily as many deaths and injuries to 3rd parties as smoking does for example, drink driving booze related violence and of course the cost when we have to patch these people up in hospital, pump thier stomach or treat them for liver sccirosis (sp?).

the amount of tax on Tobacco actually pays a sizeable chunk the NHS total budget each year (15bn in tobacco tax, that figure is based loosely on the figure HMRC gave for lost revenue to smuggleing witch is 3bn and they think this accounts for 21% of all sales linkyl)
compared with the NHS budget of 65bn. linky.

So tobe honest if your saying that Booze is ok then im afraid you should accept cigs as ok on the same basis.

[menthel]

Sorry mate, the old smoking pays for itself arguement is flawed. And have you ever seen someone die of lung cancer? Your arguement more says to ban both drinking and smoking tbh.

[G4Z]

Menthel, yeah your right however I am pro choice, and that means if I want to kill myself by drinking and smoking I can, its up to me because its my body it doesnt belong to anybody else or the govt, its mine.

now secondary smoking and stuff yeah ok I probably dont have the right to inflict that on other people, so I dont really know where I fall on the banning in public places thing but I do think that its a double standard to say right you cant smoke in a pub because you might harm other people but you can stand there and sink 15 pints and then just see what happens.

[G4Z]

Also I should add that my argument is not flawed, unless the NHS is spending >15bn directly on treating smokers then it stands.

[Ricco]

G4z,

yeah even though i do detest smoking, my main gripe has been not with the smokers, but the way it was handled since the 50's by the governments.

When i said ban it, I was actualy reffering to public places, as this is the topic of issue surrounding the matter ATM. I would't want to take anyone's right to do anything dangerous away from them, but some level of responsibility has to lie with the fact its a dead cert that IT will harm you.
Mounting climbing is dangerous, but the hardly carries the same de facto risks.

Anyway as to actual costs.

Q. Smokers already pay more tax than it costs to treat smoking on the NHS.

A. This may be true - tobacco taxation raises revenue of £9.5bn [i] compared with the £1.7bn needed to treat smoking-related illness[ii]. However, this comparison is not particularly valid. Tobacco tax is not intended to be a down-payment of the cost to the NHS of dealing with smoking-related illness. There are two main reasons why UK taxes on tobacco are relatively high: a price incentive to persuade people to give up, and to raise taxes from a source which has relatively little effect on the economy.



In any event, the cost of smoking to the economy is much wider than simply the cost to the NHS. It is estimated that 50 million working days are lost a year to tobacco related illness – about 1% of the total working days. A Canadian study found that smoking breaks cost $2175 (Canadian) per smoker per year (around £1000). Smoking causes fires and accidents (for example the King’s Cross fire which killed 31 people). The costs are not always purely financial – there is also the “social cost” of 120,000 deaths per year. This is an extremely difficult cost to quantify in financial terms. Government cost-benefit analysis for road safety assumes a cost of £800,000 for each road accident death. If this figure were used for deaths due to smoking, the total figure would be £96 billion per year, almost a third of all Government spending. This is an idea of the cost to society as a whole of premature deaths due to smoking.



In addition, if less money was raised from tobacco taxation as a result of fewer people smoking, the extra money which smokers would have as a result would be spent elsewhere in the economy, and tax would be levied on this expenditure. The Exchequer would therefore not necessarily lose out through a reduction in the number of smokers.

[menthel]

Ricco, thank you for that. Where did it come from? Perhaps we should take this to another, more relevant topic that is not about fireworks, though.

[Ricco]

Ricco, thank you for that. Where did it come from? Perhaps we should take this to another, more relevant topic that is not about fireworks, though.

sorry should have quoted my information source,

http://www.ash.org.uk/html/smuggling/html/taxfaq.html

[menthel]

Ah, even my GCSE history skills tell me its not an entirely unbiased source!

[Knoxville]

Personally I think there should be tighter controls over them, but they should still be allowed for small back garden displays as thats what they are intended for, lets face it mosta the people that blow off fingers and such aren't mum and dad at number 17, they're chav and chavette in the local park who shouldn't even have access to em. I think putting a 21+ age limit o buying them would go a little way to preventing some of the mishaps and wouldn;t be hard to impose at all.

Oh and people, lets not get started on the anti smoking arguments, we've had em before and if they start again I'm gonna be here all day arguing and i've got important things like sitting down to do this afternoon

[TheAnimus]

Menthel, yeah your right however I am pro choice, and that means if I want to kill myself by drinking and smoking I can, its up to me because its my body it doesnt belong to anybody else or the govt, its mine.

now secondary smoking and stuff yeah ok I probably dont have the right to inflict that on other people, so I dont really know where I fall on the banning in public places thing but I do think that its a double standard to say right you cant smoke in a pub because you might harm other people but you can stand there and sink 15 pints and then just see what happens.

I've read this book by another "pro choice" person, its about his struggle, and his choice to make a better place.

Now, you don't have the right to commit suicide, so the governement decides that dosen't help society, the point i'm trying to make is you have free will, upto a point, when soc dosen't like it. For instance you don't have the free will to hate people on religous grounds.

With fireworks, the thing is you should have to pay £50, straight on what ever you buy, that would stop kids, but allow parties (big ones). Thing is its not just <21 chavs. Last year there was a house party in a terrice block, with a back garden that was about 1/5th of the safety distance needed. So you can't really say its safe there, but even adults can't make the decision, for instance at uni i've never played with fireworks, we don't have a big enough area thats allowed. My parents however, have a nice big big garden, so plenty of safety distance.