Ban on novelty lighters because kids are starting fires

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/249141/


One of the accidents happened while moo was sleeping. What kind of idiot sleeps whle a 2 and 1 year old play?

T wo
H ousehold
I ncome
N o
K ids
E arly
R etirement

Tipsy McStaggers?

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

Nice excuse. Oh, that's ok then.

The only tragedy here is that the mom wasn't killed in the fire.


Sleeping while a 1 and 2 year old play is like giving Gibbon monkeys a brick of cocaine and then letting them play with hand grenades unsupervised.

Except the latter would be more entertaining to watch on YouTube.

I didn't bother to read the article.

But didn't the 1950-60's have a TON of novelty stuff to do w/ cigs, booze and lighters?

I remember lighters that looked like toy guns, lighter and cigs holders that looked like a toy donkey w/ cigs coming out of the but.

Everyone built bars in the basement of their homes in the '50s, and there were a ton of novelties one could buy for it. (gosh, those must have been the days for ADULT fun, maybe some alcoholism but adult F-U-N nonetheless!!!! hee hee!

did kids in the 50's do all this????? start fires? or did they listen to the adults and keep away?

watch the early Andy Griffith show. A stranger gives 6-7 y.o. Opie a dull hatchet to play with, and Andy is cool about it. A stranger gives Opie some coins or something and Andy is cool w/ it. He makes him give it back because he thinks it is impolite to accept or something but isn't worried about him playing w/ a hatchet or talking to a stranger giving him gifts. Then Opie is burning a sign w/ a soldiering iron at the same age, he is cool w/ it, but doesn't want to smell smoke so he tells him to go home. How come young kids back then could do all this?

Quote
Konkurrent
The only tragedy here is that the mom wasn't killed in the fire.


Sleeping while a 1 and 2 year old play is like giving Gibbon monkeys a brick of cocaine and then letting them play with hand grenades unsupervised.

Except the latter would be more entertaining to watch on YouTube.

You owe me a bottle of aspirin. I just hurt myself laughing.

While trying to find an article that did more than just reference those two boys in Kentucky who were killed while moomie slept, I ran across yet ANOTHER "death by novelty lighter" that's being blamed for the recent deaths of 2 girls, ALSO ages 1 and 2, in Indiana. There have been "novelty lighter kiddie deaths" ALL OVER the place in the past year including New York, Oregon, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Arkansas, and those were just the ones on the top of the pile. Who knew? I don't know how they slipped this one by on us, but they are getting away with it just like with regular house fires. Apparently there are bills in the legislature this month all across America and many want these "novelty lighter kiddie killers" banned on a federal level. What none of the articles I read told was, WHERE were their parents, WHY they were not being supervised, and HOW they got their hands on ANYTHING flammable, "novelty lighter" or not????



Below were two reader comments from the story about the Indiana fire that is being blamed on the novelty lighter.



Probably a mean old CF comment
"This was 2 bedrooms, 1,052 square feet. News reports were that 4 adults, 5 kids (ages 4,3,2,1 and 4 mos) were living there. Disgusting. Don't they have any occupancy restrictions in Anderson?"



Typical religious fundie breeder response, ALWAYS gotta drag God into it.
"Two babies are gone, and someone worries about occupancy restrictions? I live in a 2 bedroom apt. and at one time had a family of 7 plus their cat stay with me after the man got shot. They also have 5 children. Maybe they had to stay there to avoid the streets. That poor family. God will take care of the family, and God's got the babies, because there are no OCCUPANCY RESTRICTIONS in Heaven. ":sbx6

When I was little my father used to let me play with his "gun" lighter, which had been from the 60's...of course, my dad was smart enough to stay by my side as I clicked that little trigger to my heart's content. Of course, he wasn't afraid to say no to me either, which I think is the main difference between him and breeders today.

And they wonder why shit gets burned.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________
"Not every ejaculation deserves a name" - George Carlin

Back in the 60s, stores gave out packs of matches free with cigarettes. Every restaurant had its own matchbooks, and a nice cigarette lighter and cigarette box were considered necessary accessories for your coffee table. All of the booze-related stuff was even better.

The moo clearly was responsible for allowing her brats unsupervised access to the lighter while she was asleep. She needs to be thrown into prison for negligent homicide or whatever they might call it in Arkansas. Stupid cunt.

Quote
CFTeen
You owe me a bottle of aspirin. I just hurt myself laughing.

Screw that, I live in a CF zone.... there's gotta be a few Vicodin laying around here in reach somewhere.


I burned ants with magnifying glasses, started far too many fires with matches or any other method I could devise... hell, I made my own explosives and I'm not talking about stacking up a bunch of "caps". As a young teen I literally cooked my own high explosives in a turn-of-the-century gas stove. (Which, for the record, is by far the stupidest thing I ever did.)

But the moronic explosives thing aside, fire is not that big a deal. I was taught early on to respect fire. My mom kept me away from the stove until it was obvious I wasn't going to take her word for it. So she let me touch a gas burner that had been recently turned off but was still just hot enough to hurt. I learned. Parents just don't want to teach their kids anything because they're afraid Junyor might get hurt if he realizes electricity is in the wall.

Curiosity is too strong. If you don't show the kids what they're curious about they'll just wait till you pass out drunk and learn for themselves. Fire, electricity, guns, what have you... if it's accessible they'll get into it. If it's inaccessible they'll get into it anyway. I had access matches and lighters from such a young age I can't even remember when I didn't. I just wasn't allowed to play with them unsupervised and even when I wanted to I wasn't always allowed to.

But it loses the mystery when it's available.

Quote
Konkurrent
The only tragedy here is that the mom wasn't killed in the fire.


Sleeping while a 1 and 2 year old play is like giving Gibbon monkeys a brick of cocaine and then letting them play with hand grenades unsupervised.

Except the latter would be more entertaining to watch on YouTube.

I personally think the tragedy was that they all survived. The moo and the bratleighs shoudl have all died or at least been horribly scarred for their stupidity. You know in mythology, they would. I know it's bad karma, but still.

i always played with fire, love lighters i collect them, but its the novelty part, that gets me, if it was normal lighters would anything be said,

respect fire, after burning my wrist (dont know when or where) i have a nice bit of skin thats shiny, its been melted and damaged, but i have respect for fire. sadly so many people dont.

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

Exactly. My parents never even considered trying to shelter me from every harm - just the ones that would leave lasting damage.

Pain is a far better teacher than people give it credit for. (Which is why spanking used to be so popular.)

Let the kid grab a hot pan on the stove (but be the parent and make sure they don't pull it onto themselves) and you've now got a kid that won't do it again. Lesson learned, you don't have to watch them like a hawk around the stove as much anymore.

I only ever put one thing into an outlet that didn't belong in there. Learned that one the hard way too. Never tried it twice.
You just can't talk a kid into being smart. A certain amount of the learning has to be proved. Then they start to add it up: "Mommy/Daddy said this would hurt. It hurt. Mommy/Daddy was right. Mommy/Daddy said that would also hurt. That would probably hurt so I shouldn't do that."

It's like the counting. If you start to count to 5 and the kid doesn't stop by the time you reach 5, you damn well better do something or the kid only learns that counting doesn't mean anything. How many times have you seen that played out in the supermarket checkout line?

"Johnny don't do that. Johnny don't do that. Johnny don't do that. Johnny, please don't do that. Please? Please don't do that? Don't make me count to 5. I'll do it. No really, I'll do it. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Johnny don't do that. Johnny don't do that. Johnny don't do that."

Makes me want to spank the mom, and not in the fun way.

Well hell, let's then also ban scissors, pearing knives, pencils, pens, baseball bats, step ladders, or ANYTHING that the darling, delicate little snowflakes could possibly, in any remote way, injure themselves or anyone else.

Fuck them. Do stupid shit, then die. And if your parents aren't watching you then that's their problem.

Why not come out with a line of novelty lighters in the shapes of pacifiers (soothers or dummies)? Makes a great stocking stuffer for those with too many kids.

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"The death of creativity is a pram in the hallway"
- Cyril Connolly

Kids have always made fires with matches, lighters were rare in the 1940's and 1950's, candles, lit from the coal fire. pushing paper into the fire as well. It is something kids did if they were left alone or allowed to do dangerous things.

The difference was that parents were the "boss" that you knew the parameters, and what you would get if you overstepped them.

This was a time when there were two parents in a household. children were not left to their own devices as they are now. Children were taught manners and how to behave in public.

I for one have never eaten in the street, it was frowned upon, bad manners, and if you got caught doing so, by parents or school teachers you got punished.

Novelty lighters are responsible for children starting fires in the same way that cars are responsible for drunk driving.

I have read about the bans so far and what I am seeing is a ban on lighters that "look like toys" and that would be considered as "appealing" to children. One ATF guy who was confiscating the killer lighters in an Arkansas city said that, "A lot of these lighters look like something that could be found in a Happy Meal". I am wondering then, what about the ever popular "gun" lighters and the hand grenande lighters? Children are certainly not supposed to play with guns and hand grenades, so do THOSE novelty lighters have to go as well? What about those little booze bottle lighters that some liquor stores sell? If they are under 21, they shouldn't be allowed access to alcohol, so THAT lighter shouldn't be banned then, right? I have one that looks like a Roulette wheel and since no one under 21 would be found in a casino, they shouldn't even know what a roulette wheel looks like and therefore it wouldn't be "appealing" to them then. I have seen dildo novelty lighters, boobs novelty lighters, cooter novelty lighters, people having sex novelty lighters, etc......Since these are not something which would normally be found in a Happy Meal or sold in a ToysRus, then they should NOT be banned.


This novelty lighter ban is SHEER nonsense and it royally pisses me off.

Back when I used to smoke I got endlessly annoyed by the childproofing on lighters.

First off, childproofing only frustrates and hinders adults. You won't find anyone over the age of 2 that can't work a childproof lighter or pill bottle.

Second, it's not the world's job to make itself safe for kids. That's the parents' job.

Now I don't get too riled about the childproofing on lighters because I really don't use them anymore.

[ot]

This may be my only chance ever to share this etiquette tidbit about, as Giselle said, eating in the street, from The Master:

Q:
Dear Miss Manners:
Is it proper for one to eat while in the public right of way? Are fruits and vegetables fine, but not fried chicken? Of course I carry a napkin and do not litter with my leftovers, but what is really correct? Tomorrow's breakfast may depend on your response.

A:
Dessert is the only course that may be properly eaten on the sidewalk, and only certain desserts, at that. Apples, bananas and pears are acceptable, peaches and grapefruit are not. Ice cream cones and chocolate bars are fine, but pineapple upsidedown cake is out.
You will notice that dessert means that no meats or vegetables are permitted, nor are the usual breakfast foods, such as pancakes with maple syrup or eggs once over lightly.

About that ice cream cone: Miss Manners' awesome knowledge extends even to the proper technique for eating said cone:

Q:
Admittedly, it sounds silly to have to ask how to eat an ice cream cone. But I always end up with a mess dripping all over myself. Can it be that there is a right and a wrong way to eat ice cream cones?

A:
Much more than that, it is an art. Many parents mistakenly think that there is a natural instinct for the eating of ice cream cones, and then they make a dreadful fuss about the upholstery.
The problem is a seemingly insoluble one, namely that the cone is served empty with the scoop or scoops of ice cream on top of its fragile rim, but the eater is expected to place the frozen substance inside during the course of his eating. It may be done, but it requires the ability to plan, manual dexterity, and a knowledge of physics and geometry.
First lick the ice cream, in a clockwise motion (counterclockwise for lefthanded people), until the scoop is not wider than the rim of the cone. No overhand is permitted. Then, placing the tip of the tongue in the center of the remaining scoop, push gently downward. This requires much skill, because if you apply too much pressure the cone will burst in your hand like a balloon. After each push, additional edge-licking will be needed as the pressure forced the scoop outward. With careful planning, you should be able to fill the cone at the same time that you are filling you stomach. The cone, once full, is nibbled clockwise to the tip, which is put whole into the mouth.
This sounds like a great deal of work, but once mastered, the ability will serve you well in other more sophisticated ares of life, such as yogurt cones.

[/ot]