The Honolulu Police Department finally made some arrests in the horrific New Year’s Eve fireworks explosion that killed five people.

Good. Let’s hope the Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office brings their “A game” to these cases. People should go to jail for discharging explosives in their neighborhoods and killing people.

The Legislature needs to come up with laws that are easier to enforce and tougher on people who engage in this senselessly dangerous revelry.

Now that those parties seem to be stepping up, we can turn attention to what we can do, us regular civilians, those of us who nervously water down our roofs, tranquilize our pets and pray for heavy rain every New Year’s.

We have to come at it from a different angle.

The part that is our responsibility is the kids. Our own kids, the neighbor kids, the nieces and nephews, the kids we teach in class or see in church, and the random neighborhood kids who don’t have anybody regularly looking out for them.

We can do stuff to keep the kids safe even if the idiot adults in their lives persist in buying and blowing up illegal explosives.

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For example:

If you’re a parent and you take your kids to a New Year’s party or a Fourth of July picnic and you spot someone lining up stacks of illegal aerials somewhere behind the buffet table, you grab your keiki, tell them, “We’re going home,” get in the car and flee to safety.

If you’re the Aunty in charge at the party, you gather up everybody’s kids and get them out of there, or you stick your finger in the face of whoever is standing next to a cake of aerials holding a lighter or a punk or a flare and say, “Don’t do this over here. There’s keiki all around.” 

Full court press, makua league.

Let’s teach the kids how to protect themselves, too.

That means poster contests in the public libraries with color crayon drawings that say “Happy New Year means nobody goes to the hospital” or “Fireworks are not good luck if you get arrested.”

That means stickers and T-shirts from the fire department that read: “Sparky the Fire Dog says don’t be stupid. Aerial fireworks are illegal and deadly.” 

That means teachers add to their lessons:  “Always wash your hands after you go potty; Say please and thank you; if your uncle is lighting fireworks in your garage, run to a neighbor’s house and call 9-1-1.”

And coaches add to their pep talks: “Play clean. Respect the ref. Never give up. And fireworks will blow your fingers off.”

Pediatricians can add a question like, “Is anyone in the child’s life likely to ignite fireworks around the home?” during routine well-baby visits. If the answer is yes, the conversation turns to injury prevention.

High school health classes can spend a day on what can happen to the human body when pyrotechnics go awry.

There can be essay contests on “community safety and common sense.”

Club advisors can take their students to hold signs outside the State Capitol demanding lawmakers write and pass bills that have real teeth.

Kids shouldn’t just be made aware of the dangers. They have the right to be angry about it.

In some homes, that’s money that could be going to their college tuition being shot off into the night sky. Kids should feel empowered to advocate for themselves. We chase after every other thing that has the potential to harm children, from candy-flavored nicotine to soda machines on a school campus, but we allow them to grow up thinking that New Year’s Eve on Oahu is normal, literally normalizing that war zone insanity.

It’s hard for a kid to tell Uncle showing up at a party with armloads of explosives, “Hey Uncle, can we not do that anymore? It’s really dangerous.”  But it’s harder to go through life with less than 10 fingers. It’s harder to go through life with regret.

Let’s urge the lawmakers to get serious about fireworks and let the police, sheriff, ATF and City Prosecutor Steve Alm know that we want convictions and jail time for the people who sold the fireworks as well as those who purchased them and set them ablaze.

Let’s make sure we see an appreciable change from those agencies. But let’s also let the younger generations know that what they’re growing up with isn’t right and isn’t safe and things should get better, not bigger, every year.