Lighters?


  Not long ago, there was a tragic accident.  A little boy was
playing with a cigarette lighter, and touched off a fire which as it
destroyed the home claimed the lives of his brother and sister.  He
had evidently found it concealed in his mother's purse, near her
hidden supply of cigarettes, commonly found near lighters and matches.

  This is a direct result of the lax attitude taken by our state and
federal government toward the safety of the public.  The practically
unrestricted commerce in matches and even the compact, easily
concealed high-capacity "semi-automated" (as the President puts it)
butane lighters, has been statistically proven responsible for
thousands upon thousands of deaths yearly.  In fact, such lighters are
preferred by most arsonists!

  Sit outside your local "smoke shop" and look at the sort of people
who go inside.  These are the addicts, and the anarchists, who feel
some perverse need to posses matches or lighters.  Some will claim
that they need the matches to light stoves; yet the professionals who
handle fire for a living regularly point to a lack of training on the
part of these "individualists" who would take cooking into their own
hands ("There's never a burger stand around when you need one," they
argue)!

  No figures are available, but it is common knowledge among law
enforcement that lighters are taken from the vast majority of
criminals at time of arrest, as proven by police reports!  And even in
prison, lighters are commonly available, smuggled in from outside or
even supplied by guards and wardens!  We took our hidden cameras into
one of these Merchants of Death; inside we found rack after rack of
easily concealable lighters being offered by dozens of manufacturers,
including "military-style" lighters, colored black, green, or even
camouflage!

  Surely nobody would claim any legitimate purpose for such devices,
which only have one true purpose-ARSON!  Also popular are "Saturday
Afternoon Specials," cheap, foreign copies of quality American
lighters (as carried by our police and armed forces).  Would-be war
heroes bolster their machismo with these look-alikes of lighters
glorified in movies and cop shows on TV, made mostly of plastic, as
are the terrorist lighters which are virtually undetectable by airport
security devices.  [NOTE TO EDITORS: CAREFUL with this last reference-
-the Washington, DC Police Department is now using these plastic
lighters.  When referring to DCPD, use the phrase "High-tech police
lighters"] These semi-automated "assault lighters", with their
capacity to start dozens of fires as fast as the flint can be struck,
have become a form of status symbol among "freebase" drug users, who
prefer the massive firepower these terrible devices offer.

  We have even heard rumors of finely tuned ".45 Caliber Match" and
"National Match" items; we have been unable to find out any more of
such items, but these are obviously even more deadly than "sporting"
matches!

  While purchase of these deadly weapons is often restricted by
local law to persons over a certain age, there is no federal law to do
so; one state may have a stringent law while its neighboring state has
no controls whatsoever, making unlawful importation from one state to
another a serious problem.  What is needed is a Federal law, to keep
these devices from felons or the mentally ill, and, of course, a
Federal registration program to identify repeat offenders (those who
claim that such offenders will bypass the laws and buy fire on the
black market are to be laughed out of the studio as being obviously
unfamiliar with the real world)!

  We at Fire Control, Inc., are aware that the Lighter Lobby is a
powerful bloc in Washington, as evidenced by the federal grants and
subsidies given to the producers of these infernal devices and their
associates, the tobacco pushers.  Nonetheless, we seek tighter
restrictions on ownership, manufacture, and transfer of matches and
lighters.  After all, what sort of person really needs such implements
(no matter the claims of so-called "sportsmen")?  Nice guys who have
lighters aren't nice guys!  Those who claim some "right" to own fire
point to the fact that the Founding Fathers, themselves, used open
flame; however, James Madison never had a Scripto!  We are not after
legitimate fire, started by steel, flint, and tinder (as the Founding
Fathers used), but the terrible toll exacted by semi-automated
"assault" lighters must be stopped!