Nah, anyone who has ever shot off their own fireworks knows that professional shows are idiotic. It is incredibly more fun to light your own, scramble back, and watch it blow. It's not even a comparison. It's the difference between watching a movie on the original gameboy instead of an imax theater. If you never had the chance to do it as a kid, don't deprive your kids of the fun.

We just need a place that's available for folks, relatively safe in not being a fire risk, and is NOT in a neighborhood or near ranches/farms, although I bet the county/city could rent a rancher's field or pay enough to relocate the cattle for a few nights. Pay for a few busses, and you've got a slick set up.

It's the same argument as with illicit drugs. Ban it, and people are just going to seek it out on their own. Regulate it, and you can start playing with all sorts of scenarios. How far would education go in reducing the amount of suddenly splayed hands that emergency rooms have to see? How many fires and traumatized folks/animals would suddenly no longer have to hear it if you encourage it to happen elsewhere instead of simply attempting to forbid it? You could offer a free mortar round to anyone taking a safety briefing before entering the fireworks grounds, or free ice cream for fifteen minutes of fire watch duty on the edges and/or any other prosocial activities you could get kids and teens up to.