Ep. 336 - The Right to Bear Sparklers

It's the 250th birthday of the country, and David wants to do one modest thing to mark it: set off some fireworks that comply with Rhode Island state law. What stands in the way is a neighbor filming from a poison ivy patch, a permit regime that demands unanimous consent from the same people who once called the police on a four-year-old's backyard birthday, and an armed officer from the Department of Environmental Management who arrives at his door to walk him through the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. The act, it turns out, protects birds that don't migrate at all, which leaves David and Brad to work out why the state will hand a sidearm to someone guarding an osprey's peace of mind while major cities quietly thin their police forces.