A bill that would make it legal for adults to shoot off fireworks in Iowa has cleared a subcommittee in the Iowa Senate.
Senator Wally Horn, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, says the general public wants it…
“I don’t know how many more fireworks will be set off if we pass this law than it is right now.”
Novelty items like sparklers and snakes are legal to light in Iowa, but all other fireworks have been illegal in the state of Iowa since 1938.
John Pederson, a lobbyist for the Iowa Professional Firefighters Association, says the group is “leaning against” legalizing consumer fireworks…
“We’re concerned not only about fire safety but the medical responses that we also have in situations like this.”
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates 87-hundred Americans went to a hospital emergency room in 2012 for treatment of an injury caused by fireworks and 46 percent of those patients were under the age of 20.
