The annual debate about whether we can have good fireworks has started again, and let's cut to the chase: You'll get rockets when you get Sunday wine sales. Which is to say, when you hire someone to clean the pig droppings off your roof because a herd of porkers flew overhead.

It always comes back to the age-old question: Can we be trusted? Some can. National statistics say males account for 68 percent of fireworks injuries. There's a shocker. Hold my beer; I'm going to put this pack of Black Cat down my pants. They're just ladyfingers. If I catch on fire, put a Mentos in that liter of Coke there and hose me down. You filming? OK!

Even if you're not doing stupid things, stupid things can happen. Years ago (he said, confident the statute of limitations has expired) I set off this thing you might call the Throat-Shearing Angry Death Hornet. It was a metal disk with little wings, and the instructions were simple: Place on a level surface. In case you were thinking of propping it up on the kid's slide. Light fuse. Really? I thought I'd just stare at it and make sarcastic remarks until it got flushed with resentment and ignited itself.

Get away. That's the part I liked. There aren't many things you can buy where the instructions say, essentially, run for your life. So I got away, dancing backward, and the Angry Death Hornet rose on a column of sparks with a hideous whizzing shriek — and tipped toward me, so I had a moment where I felt like Robert Oppenheimer regarding the first successful atomic bomb. Whatever awe you feel is crowded by some stark reservations.

For a moment I thought it would smack me square in the face and Cuisinart my features, then EXPLODE, because that was the promised conclusion. They'd have to call the ambulance: "Come quick! He's given his nose for Freedom!"

It changed course and sped up into the sky, which would be great except I suddenly was convinced that all the neighbors had strewn straw on their roofs and someone's house would go up. Then it exploded, and some sharp shards twirled down to earth and probably stuck in the ground in front of a squirrel who thought, "That was close. I've been given a second chance. I will change my ways."

That was just one small firework, a fine product of People's State Recreational Explosives Factory #23, Shanghai. How would I feel if I had access to a quality rocket that went up 300 feet and produced a detonation whose vibrations atomized Fiestaware for a block around?

AWESOME. It would be AWESOME, because that I would not screw up. I'd pound a pipe in the backyard to provide a stable launching tube; I'd wait until the planes had passed; I'd even send an e-mail to the International Space Station to give them a heads-up in case something pinged against the side of the hull. I'd go around the neighborhood to apologize to dogs in advance, because I remember how my dog not only ran to the garage when fireworks started but tried to hot-wire the Honda to get away.

In short, I can be trusted completely with recreational explosives. Everyone else? No. So keep the ban in place. Really, you people are dangerous.

james.lileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 • Twitter: @Lileks • facebook.com/james.lileks