Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

I hope so. Leaving the question of air quality aside, fireworks are a torture upon wildlife. Every year in Germany, about a thousand dogs and cats are lost around NYE because they are scared off by fireworks [1], to say nothing about actual wildlife like birds, rabbits or other animals you'll find around every city that is traumatized or directly killed from the stress. The trash load is insane as well, it's hundreds of cubic meters [5] worth of trash that major cities have to dispose of on the taxpayers' dime because people can't be arsed to pick up and dispose of their ordnance after themselves.

And on top of that, you get the insane caseload for medical staff in the weeks before, during and after from all the dumb drunk fucks thinking it's wise to handle fireworks while being drunk out of their mind - 2024 we got five dead [2] across Germany and hundreds of injured in Berlin alone [3], we even got an "influencer" shooting a rocket into a home for social media clout [4].

IMHO: The sooner fireworks go off and die, the better. The problem is, it's a certainty that the usual far-right crowd will drag this issue into their culture war allegations bullshit, just as they did with electric cars, renewable power or smoking bans...

[1] https://www.derhund.de/fast-500-hunde-um-den-jahreswechsel-e...

[2] https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gesellschaft/jahreswechsel-...

[3] https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2025/01/silvester-berl...

[4] https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/berlin-raketenschuss-...

[5] https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2024/12/berlin-silvest...

I hope so as well! I believe anyone that owns or knows a dog or cat is quite sensitized to the awful noises of fireworks (and straight-up explosives, as they are sometimes used). But I’m afraid too many people are still needlessly fascinated by the spectacle and don’t want things to change.

As of now it's seems you can barely discuss any of this without someone getting political.

There are also many paths in between uncontrollably selling fireworks to anyone over 18 and banning it completely.

I would highly prefer some cities just openly banning it so people have places to go to to avoid it.

Edit:// also there are rockets and whatever without loud "boom" no idea why they aren't more common

I like your take, as it provides a place for those who oppose it without making the massive leap from "I can find reasons to support my distaste for it" to "No one anywhere ever should do it".

Not to get too political, but in the USA, I always romanticized states as the places where enough people could gather under the "I don't like X" banner and make their own way, without neighboring states trying to use federal law to ban it anyway.

We're way past that though, sadly.

I was travelling Spain this year and there was nowhere to hide. The most remote places turned into outdoor festivals and everywhere else everyone below 20 or so was shooting around. My dog hated it, I did too. I never saw fireworks, just "boooom" going on for days.

The real surprise was that there was no major place advertising to at least ban the "boom" things. And that it was going on for about a week.

Compared to that being loud one night, in a civilized matter, focusing on beautiful and not loud stuff would be a tame alternative.

It's important to understand that the firework situation today is VERY different from 5 years ago.

Before pandemic, big fireworks were only sold to professionals, and they were exploded at a pre-determined time and place. If you like big fireworks: no problem you can simply attend one of these shows. If you don't like fireworks: no problem just be somewhere else on that particular evening

Nowadays anyone can buy big stuff. And they are setting them off constantly. I live in an urban area and big BOOMs are going off all the time in my neighborhood, especially at night. I'm not sure how anyone can argue that this is OK or a matter of preference. It's a major disruptor to quality of life, and I wish all fireworks enthusiasts would get to experience this

If you ask me I would prefer a regression to the pre-2020 situation. Who knows. If kids weren't allowed to buy fireworks, Maybe the Palisades would still be here and my parents and all their friends would still have a house

I enjoy fireworks. A lot.

Some of the reasons you brought up are valid, but, at the end of the day the world is a collection of personalities and there is one collective personality that likes fireworks. That will never go away :).

The nice thing is that we can both coexist. You have a right to be against them, I have a right to be for them. We both enjoy times when there are no fireworks and times when there are many.

Since you seem quite knowledgeable about the topic. What do you think could be done to ameliorate the issues you mention, while also letting firework enjoyers enjoy their thing once in a while?

Ah there it is, the incendiary ban-em-all culture war post.

> incendiary

I applaud your wordplay, it really is fitting the topic, but come on. I made some serious effort to cite credible sources for all of my points.

The only thing I see as incendiary in my post is the "dumb drunk fucks", but honestly, people who deal with dangerous (and sometimes outright illegally powerful) explosives while being drunk out of their mind deserve no civility.

Birds don't get lost. Are you allowed in Germany to talk about the real problem surrounding fireworks, or is that a fine/prison?

> Birds don't get lost.

You're right - they die, and I reworded the post to make it obvious what I meant. Thousands of dead birds are the norm [1][2].

> Are you allowed in Germany to talk about the real problem surrounding fireworks, or is that a fine/prison?

A barely veiled "the immigrants", eh? And no, that has been a problem that existed decades before the big 2015ff migration events. In school, a friend of mine blew up half his hand, for example.

[1] https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/tausend-tote-bergf...

[2] https://utopia.de/vogel-in-panik-aufnahmen-zeigen-chaos-beim...

> A barely veiled "the immigrants", eh?

I should be a cop. It's almost too easy to get a confession without the question being leading i any way whatsoever.

– Are you allowed in China to talk about the real problem, or is that a fine/prison?

– What, are you trying to say that the Communist party is bad, that's ridiculous!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com