More fireworks OK’d for sale by Legislature
PHOENIX — For the third time in a decade, state lawmakers are moving to allow Arizonans to possess fireworks.
With the bare minimum 31 votes required for approval, the House agreed Tuesday to permit the purchase of fireworks and to allow Arizonans to buy certain kinds of mortars that actually shoot rockets into the air.
That is a major departure from current law that specifically prohibits anything that explodes or lifts off the ground. The measure now goes to the Senate.
Tuesday’s vote is part of what has been an ongoing move by the companies that make fireworks and the retailers who make money off their sale.
Up until 2006 pretty much anything with gunpower was illegal, at least as far as for entertainment.
That year legislators decided it was OK to have things like party poppers. These small devices involve pulling a string which ignites a small charge, discharging some confetti.
The same law legalized snap caps — the things you throw on the ground to make a popping sound — as well as toy smoke devices and glow worms.
It took another four years for lawmakers to be comfortable allowing the purchase and use of sparklers. At the same time, legislators agreed to legalize fountains that spray off sparks and ground spinners.
Revenge porn bill
on its way to governor
PHOENIX — Victims of “revenge porn” are finally on the verge of getting legal shelter from abuse by their former lovers and spouses, two years after they first thought they were protected.
Without dissent the Senate on Monday approved legislation making it a crime to put someone else’s naked picture on the Internet without his or her consent.
HB 2001 now goes to Gov. Doug Ducey for his anticipated signature. And it is crafted so that it takes effect the moment the governor pens his name to the bill.
The measure is designed to plug what Rep. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, said is a gap in the law.
He said it is not uncommon for someone in a relationship to send a lover a naked picture of themselves or even allow that person to shoot a photo or video. The problem, he said, is what happens when the relationship ends, often badly, and the other party decides to post the images online.
As approved in 2014, the law made it a felony to “intentionally disclose, display, distribute, publish, advertise or offer” a photo, video, film or digital recording of someone else who is naked “if the person knows or should have known that the depicted person has not consented to the disclosure.”
The result was a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union as well as booksellers.
Lee Rowland called the measure an unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment rights because it is overly broad and makes criminals out of those who sell, display or simply show images of others who are naked but have not granted specific permission.
State officials agreed to stop trying to enforce the law to give Mesnard a chance to fix it.
He crafted a bill that challengers found acceptable last year, only to have it fail to get a Senate vote in the last hours of the session. This year’s version is identical.
The language going to Ducey has two big changes from the original 2014 law.
First, prosecutors would have to show that the person in the pictures had a “reasonable expectation of privacy.” It also requires proof that the image was disclosed “with the intent to harm, harass, intimidate, threaten or coerce the depicted person.”
