Say NO to nanny-state, July 4 drones

It's "rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air" not the drone lights last gleaming

What is America if not a country forged by booms, bangs and flashes in the air? But what did I hear this year? Drone shows are gaining popularity to replace fireworks in many cities around the U.S. I say NO to drones on July 4; it’s just wrong, wrong wrong.

Denver’s drone show. CBS News screen capture.

Denver, Salt Lake City, Sarasota, Florida, and “dozens of cities” are switching to drone shows around the country. They say drones are safer, present less fire hazards, are non-polluting, don’t leave debris, and are reusable, and therefore green since they’re electrically powered. I’m not going to argue any of those points; I concede they are indeed true. But that’s not the point at all.

The whole point of July 4 fireworks celebrations is that our founding is unbreakably tied to rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air. It’s who America is, and how individual Americans celebrate Independence Day. There was a time when states like Georgia banned the sale of go-bang fireworks and mortars and such, and all we could buy was the lame little flashy sparky stuff that sits on the ground or spins. It was gross, which is why giant fireworks outlets popped up just over the South Carolina border, for us to sneak over and buy up our big finale packages, titanium mortars, and fistfuls of wannabe M-80s.

As a disclaimer here, suggested by my lawyer, if I had a lawyer, it’s dangerous to play with fireworks. And M-80s are illegal in most places (if not everywhere). And holding an M-80 in your fist is supremely stupid. In 2024, about 14,700 people were injured due to fireworks, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Only 11 were killed outright, and while I feel awful that anyone would lose a relative to a fireworks accident, let’s be real about it. The major contributing cause of anyone who is killed or badly injured by fireworks is likely to be the same cause of road accidents, firearm injuries, or falling off a cliff taking a selfie. It’s either inattention, alcohol, or a combination of both. So doing anything, including working with machine tools, band saws, chainsaws, or chefs’ knives, in a non-professional, inattentive or reckless manner, is dangerous.

America is not a nanny-state. Even places like California are, at heart, not nanny-states. If we were a nanny-state, we’d still be singing “God Save the King.” The reason they don’t celebrate Independence Day (on any day of the year) in Canada is because Canada is defined as having played it safe, and remaining in the lap of the British Crown. They actually celebrate “Canada Day” which used to be Dominion Day, and it wasn’t a war, but an act of parliament, in London, that granted Canada some kind of unified status rather than disconnected territories and colonies, which happened in 1867, I believe. America said we’re done with being colonies in 1775, and our founders signed their own death warrants on July 4, 1776. By the time old England got around to giving Canada a holiday to celebrate, we’d already fought three wars, one with our own selves.

Americans don’t play it safe. We play with fireworks. In fact, I’m surprised that only 11 people died from it in 2024. To me, that’s a good record, considering the millions of Americans who buy giant boxes of pyrotechnics and beer, and use them contemporaneously.

I don’t care if drones are inherently better, or if they present other-worldly shows that simply mortars could never produce. Give me howitzers and a hundred mortars firing titanium shells over the Charles River at the Esplanade in Boston, please. Give me church bells ringing during the 1812 Overture, while the Boston Pops is barely audible over the din of a thousand fireworks exploding in a continuous stream of light, color, smoke, and percussion. Give me a giant, honking, fireworks show.

Let us light our own too.

If cities want to integrate drones into fireworks shows, I’m fine with that. Shoot the drones down with fireworks for all I care. Some drones are “pyro drones” that can carry fireworks. I’m on the fence about that. I suppose if the drones actually exploded, I’d be for it. Back when my older brothers were kids, they used to put M-80s in various models, throw them off the roof and explode them mid-air. This is America. Strap a quarter-stick of dynamite on a thousand drones, and for the finale of the show, blow them all up. Yeah, so satisfying. But not safe, or green, or non-noise-polluting. Not to mention, a huge waste of money.

And who, besides dogs, cares that July 4 celebrations are loud? I get it. Dogs, if they had a calendar, would blot this day out forever. All dogs hate July 4th with a passion. They fear it. (Except many Dalmations, which are deaf by birth.) But one day a year that dogs hate is no reason to throw away nearly 250 years of American heritage.

At least one city came to its senses. Tahoe City, California, after two years of doing drone shows, went back this year to good old, old-fashioned boom boom fireworks. As their website says, they brought “back the boom!”

This is as it should be. And when that big box finale, made in China of course, that’s supposed to last two minutes, stops after like 10 shells, you went out there, beer in hand, and relit that thing. Because that’s America.

I hope you had a good, safe, July 4th holiday. Next year, I hope there’s no more drone shows. Someone should pass a law.