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When Hawaiʻi leaders talk about trying to stop the scourge of illegal fireworks, they seem almost apologetic about having to be the mean parent. Like, “Aww, I know, buddy. You were having so much fun, weren’t you? But I really don’t want you to get hurt, okay?”

I’m not sure they’re reading the room correctly.

People are completely sick and tired of the insanity. They have been for years. They roll their eyes at the promises to stop illegal fireworks. They assume everyone is getting paid off and nothing will ever happen.

Be the hammer, Gov. Josh Green.

You’re the plain-speaking mayor, Rick Blangiardi.

Do what needs to be done. Come down hard with no apologies. It’s not about finding a compromise that lets everybody have a little of what they want. It’s about stopping the war-like violence in our neighborhoods.

How Should Hawaiʻi Handle Illegal Fireworks?

We want to hear your take on how officials should address illegal fireworks in our islands, whether it be related to enforcement, legislation, community involvement or something else. We may share your responses on our website or social media accounts.

There is this false narrative that all Hawaiʻi people dearly looooooove fireworks, and that even those who aren’t blowing up the sky every Dec. 31 are tolerant of the illegal explosives.

It has become an unchallenged excuse that protects inaction.

Obviously, some people love the thrill of setting off explosions outside their carports.

Clearly many people love the money to be made by importing and selling black market  pyrotechnics. Others enjoy watching the mayhem in the night skies from a safe distance, if there is such a thing as a safe distance anywhere on Oʻahu on the night of Dec. 31.

But not everyone loves fireworks. The amount of anger that rises up every time we go through another New Year’s night of mayhem seems to represent a significant part of the population. Many people hate the chaos and are furious at the impunity with which bigger and more dangerous incendiary devices are employed by amateur arsonists every year. People are not merely irritated, not aggrieved, not annoyed or inconvenienced. Furious.

It’s also wrong to assert that Hawaiʻi residents who don’t set off illegal fireworks themselves nevertheless “tolerate” them. To tolerate something means to not interfere with something even though one may not like it.

Hawaiʻi doesn’t so much tolerate the mayhem as endure it with a kind of learned helplessness.

This, sadly, is a big part of what it takes to live on an overcrowded island. One must learn to be helpless to live with Hawaiʻi’s ever-growing traffic problems, to keep paying the high cost of basic groceries, to weave past homeless people lurching around downtown screaming at the sky, to live with all these terrible things we know we cannot change.

To be fair, in the joint press conference in the hours after the New Year’s fireworks disaster, both the governor and the mayor said things have got to change.

They said it forcefully. Both were brimming with emotion.

And then they kind of took it back by saying that they understand that fireworks are traditional and cultural, like that somehow makes them holy and unquestionable. Again, a ridiculous idea.

A couple of strings of firecrackers hanging from the pole of a mango picker is traditional and cultural. What currently goes down during New Year’s is inexcusable.

Also inexcusable is the idea that somehow we as civilian nobodies can enact change by policing our neighbors ourselves.

It is impossible for a regular citizen — a homebody kupuna or a busy parent or a 20-something renter — to feel like they have any power over what mischief their neighbor is up to. The longer you’ve lived in the neighborhood, the harder it is to feel like you can tattle on your neighbor’s antics or go knock on their door and ask them to please play safe. We know how this goes. Those poor people out on Waiʻanae Valley Road had been asking for help with their unruly neighbor and his “Silva Dome” for years before he snapped and came at them with a bulldozer and a gun. They still had to stop him themselves. When the police finally did something, they arrested the hero who brought an end to the murderous rampage. We know how this goes.

What a glorious achievement it would be for Gov. Green and Mayor Blangiardi to be able to say that they were the ones who brought peace and safety to the island on New Year’s Eve. Those two leaders, both with their own brand of swagger and ambition, should take up the challenge to do the supposedly unpopular thing and come down hard on this nonsense.

Of course, much of this will be in the hands of the Legislature, those Rix-wearing wonks, many of whom were elected by only 1,000 votes or so, who live in fear of upsetting anybody in their district or on their donor list.

The state attorney general’s proposal sounds promising, but it remains to be seen if the Legislature will find the guts to do what should have been done long ago. And there aren’t many hammers or plain-speakers in that assembly.