JumpStart by Robb Armstrong for June 26, 2016

Fireworks need not be handled by “professionals” unless they are aerial explosives. Otherwise, all you need is to take care and use them safely by using common sense and intelligent thinking, something lacking in half the population, I do admit.

Those weren’t reenactments, Jojo. Your Mom took you to the emergency room to show you first hand.

I think Jason Pierre-Paul should be enough warning for them, lol

I love reading Jump Start. However, this strip takes place in Philly., Pa and crossing into Pa. from New Jersey you get hit with signs saying BY FIRE WORKS HERE! To which I say, WHAT THE HELL!

saw a guy lose 3 fingers back in HS..dummy

There’s a hamlet in my county that always has its Independence Day celebration on the last Saturday of June so as to avoid competing for parade entries with the larger parades that go off on or about July 4. Last night after the parade, one of the pyrotechnicians partially blew off a finger when a mortar misfired. Fire marshal determined that there was no failure of the mortar mount nor any deformation of the mortar tube, meaning the firework misfired on its own. And while the tubes were rigged for remote electric firing, this mortar was fired from a lighted fuse. This was a pro, gang, and it still happened. Don’t think you amateurs will escape fate forever.

Most nowadays are much less powerful and dangerous.People are still creative enough to hurt themselves.. By the way, I have never been injured but I have done some stupid things in the past. I have had firecrackers and bottle rockets blow up in my hand. I held them loose enough and at the end of the firecracker that the blasts weren’t contained and less damaging..I advise all to NOT try this and appreciate the comic strip reminding all of the dangers. Fireworks are something like street drugs, you never know what all is in them, how fast the fuse or effect is o rhow strong any indviidual one is

We used to make our own pyrotechniques. There was a place where you could openly and legally buy as little as a quarter pound of stuff like strontium nitrate (red flame), barium sulfate (green), copper sulfate (blue), finely powdered magnesium (white), and of course sodium chloride (yellow) was widely available and every drug store had potassium nitrate (oxidizer). Amazingly, no one got hurt. The things we could do legally in the ’40s that would send us to prison today are endless.