Unregulated fireworks in the public interest?

After all, is it enough for the established fireworks importers to hold their hands up innocently and say they “follow the law” knowing fully well the law has not evolved apace with the robust fireworks demand? Is the law for fireworks sensible and can it be regulated as it exists today? Is it wise that any person, even a murderer, can discharge shotgun-like fireworks in gangster-turf style on celebratory occasions (as seen in a video) openly, anytime, anywhere, anyhow, whether drunk, sober or in-between? Pistols and machine- gun fire are easily camouflaged by fireworks- bomb discharges, as occurred with our nation’s first murder (for a six-year-old child) for 2016 in the Beetham Gardens, or the innocent man who was shot in Siparia in the back by a gun while onlookers thought it was fireworks? Are people with a criminal record permitted to get a hunter’s licence for a shotgun? Yet any convict can buy any amount of any kind of fireworks bomb and discharge it outside the Port-of-Spain Prison if they choose. Is this sensible? Should the law not require fireworks licences in the same way we have shotgun licences for hunters without police records, who have limits of where they can discharge in relation to human settlements, and of which specie they can kill? Shouldn’t fireworks detonators also have a limit as to when, how much, how long and where they can discharge their shotgun-type ammo? Hunters must hunt in the forest, not in parks and areas of human habitation. So, too, should the fireworks bombing be zoned — not just anywhere, by anyone, at any time .

We are aware that distributors are earning a handsome living as fireworks-bomb suppliers of notable professionalism, but is it enough to say you follow the law when you know fully well that the law is behind the pace of public demand for these bombs? Can anyone imagine what we are doing to our life underwater when the authorities close one eye and approve marine seismic surveys anywhere, anytime, anyhow — as is being done on land? Knowing that sound travels unencumbered under water, can you imagine how marine species including lower food chain creatures function/mate/eat or spawn with the type of bombing that occurred on Old Year’s Night? Seismic surveys are much more than some would make us believe .

They are not “only just a picture of what’s under the sea,” as some would have us believe .

Terrence Beddoe; Gary Aboud FFOS