A flock of flaming chickens, a torched 4-H rabbit project and a burnt-up barn.

Those past incidents and more have been used to argue against the “Fireworks Freedom Act,” a bill that would attempt — once again — to make some aerial and explosive fireworks available in Minnesota.

The bill, which passed the Minnesota House on Monday, would remove the long-standing prohibition against selling such products in Minnesota — an idea Gov. Mark Dayton has already said he would be unlikely to support. The measure was approved 73-56.

State Rep. Jason Rarick, R-Pine City, says such fireworks are now purchased across state lines and brought back to Minnesota in large quantities. His bill, he said, would allow Minnesota to tax those sales. Under his measure, local governments could ban the sale or use of explosive fireworks if they wished.

In a February hearing, Rarick argued that many people are injured on Thanksgiving by fires related to Turkey fryers, “but yet we’re not seeing many groups standing up trying to say we should get rid of turkey fryers.”

State Rep. Dan Schoen, DFL-St. Paul Park, replied during the hearing by referencing his experiences as a police officer: “From what I hear and when I’m working, it’s not the complaints about injuries, it’s the complaints about the knuckleheads that won’t stop doing it. … I don’t get calls of complaints at 3 a.m.about turkey fryers, you know what I mean?”

In 2012, Dayton vetoed a similar bill; the language allowing for local oversight was added to the bill this year in hopes it could avoid a similar fate.

State Fire Marshal Bruce West said he didn’t think the bill had changed enough to earn Dayton’s acceptance — much less his own. Like last time, he lined up with a slew of fire officials against the bill, saying it would lead to a rise in property damage and personal injury. The state police chiefs association and the League of Minnesota Cites have also come out against the bill.

“The fire marshal’s correct,” Dayton said when asked about the bill last week. “It’s fine in the abstract, but we’re setting standards of public behavior, and if somebody takes fireworks and … blows off a child’s arm standing nearby or whatever, I want the state of Minnesota to say you’re doing that illegally.”

When asked a follow-up question, Dayton said he hadn’t reviewed Rarick’s legislation and declined further comment.

The bill has yet to receive a hearing in the Senate, and Rarick noted he had yet to meet with the governor.

Leonard Bonanader of Sandstone, whose family owns a commercial fireworks display business, testified during the February hearing, “The reality is the genie’s out of the bottle. If you look at any lake around the Fourth of July, there’s all kinds of stuff that I know they didn’t purchase here in Minnesota.”

John King, the fire chief for LeSueur, Minn., offered one of the more memorable examples of a firework-affiliated disaster, describing an incident in which a youth “started a beautiful hip roof barn on fire, burned up his mother’s chickens and his sibling’s 4H rabbit projects and started the adjacent grassland on fire.”

But others – particularly hospital officials – cited more injurious examples, relating to hand and head injuries to children, as well as grass fires caused by fireworks that engulfed thousands of acres.

The bill’s proponents argued that the fireworks are already here, and pointed out the largest number of injuries — 30 percent, and 80 percent of injuries to kids under 10 — came from sparklers, which are currently legal in Minnesota.

Before 2002, all consumer fireworks were illegal in Minnesota. That year, non-aerial and non-explosive fireworks were legalized. The measure up for debate Monday would legalize firecrackers, bottle rockets and some larger aerial fireworks, but would not allow for M-80s. Fireworks could only be purchased from June 1 to July 10.

In advance of the House vote, opponents and proponents put out warring statistics on injuries — with fire chiefs noting a 117 percent increase in firework related injuries in Minnesota since they were legalized in 2002. Rarick went much further back for his baseline — all the way to 1976 — saying fireworks-related injuries are now about a sixth of what they were then nationally, according to the U.S. federal trade and consumer product safety commissions.

State Rep. Tony Cornish, who chairs the House’s public safety committee, has consistently backed the legislation, which he refers to as the “fun and freedom act.”

On the House floor Monday, the Republican from Vernon Center called those against the bill “people who just don’t want to have fun anymore,” and added, “The states that allow this haven’t burnt to the ground.”

State Rep. Erik Simonson, DFL-Duluth, along with others in his party, argued that the bill would increase injuries but was furthermore “an exercise in futility” given the governor’s stance. He also said the House had more important issues to focus on during the shortened session.

View the vote by member and district:

Updated