Chip Roy Is Fighting For Your Kid's Freedom To Accidentally Set Themselves On Fire
Also for your right to accidentally set yourself on fire.
A good deal of the time, when Republicans talk about eliminating regulations, they try to avoid getting too specific about which regulations they would like to eliminate — largely because it’s a whole lot easier to pretend they’re unnecessary that way. Otherwise, you’d just have people going “Oh, wait a minute, I don’t actually want to get food poisoning, get scammed by a bank, or die in an easily preventable fire!” all the time instead of complaining about the “nanny state.”
But brave, brave Rep. Chip Roy has decided to take a public stand for the unnecessarily dangerous gas cans that make it easier for American consumers and their children to accidentally set themselves on fire. This week, Roy and five other Republican co-sponsors introduced H.R. 1345, a bill “to repeal the Portable Fuel Container Safety Act of 2020 and the Children’s Gasoline Burn Prevention Act, and for other purposes.”
“Pointless government regulations have ruined many common sense products, and everyone knows it,” Roy said in a statement published to his website. “The federal government does not need to be involved in every aspect of our lives, and we never needed them involved in our gas cans. The Gas Can Freedom Act will eliminate the unnecessary federal regulations that have made gas cans dysfunctional and allow Americans to return to simple gas cans that actually work. It is long past time to make gas cans functional again.”
What do these laws do? Well, if you can believe it, the Portable Fuel Container Safety Act of 2020 requires these containers to have flame mitigation devices that make it less likely that they will explode or spew flames out all over the place. As a result of these devices, it takes slightly longer (I guess?) to pour gasoline than it otherwise would, which is apparently far more upsetting to Roy and others than the prospect of dying in a fire.
Via the Consumer Product Safety Commission:
Flame mitigation devices, such as flame arrestors, protect against flame jetting and container rupturing. Flame jetting is a phenomenon where an external ignition source – such as an open flame – causes a sudden ignition of fuel within a container and forcefully expels burning vapor and liquid from the mouth of the container, resulting in a blowtorch-like effect. Container rupturing is like flame jetting, except the burning vapor and liquid are expelled through a rupture in the container.
Where’s the fun in that, I ask you? Don’t people want to live on the edge?
As for the Children’s Gasoline Burn Prevention Act, that requires gas cans and other fuel containers to adhere to “child-resistance requirements for closures on portable gasoline containers,” in order “to mitigate hazards associated with children under age 5 accessing gasoline.” Hazards like drinking gasoline and also setting themselves on fire.
This also makes it slightly more difficult for some adults to open gas cans, which, sure, I guess can be frustrating. Though probably not nearly as frustrating as having to go visit your kid in the burn unit.
I’ll admit that I am personally terrified of fire, to the point where I had to stop watching the show “Medium” because Patricia Arquette kept taking baths surrounded by 87,000 candles and it gave me horrible anxiety. But I think it’s fair to say that most people, in general, would really prefer to not ever be on fire for any reason.
Safety regulations exist for reasons. Sure, sometimes they make things slightly less convenient, but they also prevent lethal or at least horribly disfiguring accidents from happening, so it’s a pretty decent trade-off.
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“Pointless government regulations have ruined many common sense products, and everyone knows it,” Roy said in a statement published to his website." Ever notice how often RW propagandists use the words "everyone knows it” when they're making their point?