First, I will just say good evening to all of you who work at Northeast News and also I want to say thank you for publishing a newspaper for all of us who live in this area.

It is almost 9:30 p.m. on this Sunday evening and all I can hear is the sound of firecrackers going off. They have been nonstop for weeks now, starting in the middle of June. I have lived in this area for nearly 12 years now and firecrackers/other explosives have been a constant every year before, during, and well after the 4th of July. This year it has sounded more like cannons going off night and day.

Fireworks have been “illegal” in Kansas City, Missouri, for my entire life but that has never stopped anyone and nothing has ever been done to discourage people from using them.

Some of these explosives I honestly consider to be deadly. I have bags full of shrapnel that looks like plastic bullets that could easily put out an eye, or go into an ear or a throat and cause horrific injuries or death. A fireball of colorful sprays shoots out of something and all the colorful sprays carry one of the sharp pieces of shrapnel.

Of course, many, many pieces are inside one device, so you can imagine how many I have picked up from the sidewalks and streets and from my back yard – every year for the last 11 years.

Fireworks should be only used for professional displays, of which there are many every year, and not allowed in the hands of anyone else. They are dangerous and they terrify all animals. But few people seem to care. Caring and concern for others and obeying laws now seems to be ancient history.
WHERE have all the good and decent people gone???

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Judith Junior