> Mortars or fireworks?

“Mortars” and “fireworks” are overlapping categories.

https://fireworks.com/products/aerial/reloadable-mortars

When someone says "I watched people throw Molotov cocktails and shoot mortars at law enforcement", the obvious implication is that we are talking about the type of military hardware pictured and described at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_(weapon) being used to intentionally injure or kill a group of people, not a toy version intended for making a celebratory burst of color being launched against the side of a building.

There was at least one molotov cocktail captured on camera in September landing in the street between a group of protestors and a line of cops, though it is not clear whether anyone was injured by it.

> When someone says “I watched people throw Molotov cocktails and shoot mortars at law enforcement”, the obvious implication is that we are talking about the type of military hardware pictured and described at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_(weapon) being used to intentionally injure or kill a group of people, not a toy version intended for making a celebratory burst of color being launched against the side of a building.

I…disagree.

If I heard “small arms and mortars”, I’d think of the military weapon. (Or “rockets and mortars”, without other context.)

If I hear “molotov cocktails and mortars”, though, I’d think of either the fireworks or some improvised device, but not miltary hardware unless there was some other contextual indication favoring the latter. While its obviously not impossible for a group to both be using Molotov cocktails and have access to military heavy weapons, that’s not really, to me, the normal association.

well aren't you one special little snowflake

Don't do this here, please.

What's the difference when it blows up in your face? Throwing explosives in urban centers is unacceptable and violent.

Mortars are a hell of a lot more lethal any consumer firework. So, yes there is a difference. Mortars also need to be used at range (100s of meters to kilometers) to be effective. I highly doubt mortars were in use.

> Mortars are a hell of a lot more lethal any consumer firework.

Well, some mortars are. Other mortars are consumer fireworks.

It's almost like, in the interest of clarity, we should use specific, non-overly-broad words that can't be misinterpreted. The use of the word "mortar" here is clearly causing problems, so how about "aerial firework" and "combat mortar"?

Good point, I wasn't thinking of actual military mortars. But I think "mortar" often means consumer firework in modern parlance.

I think there might be a lot of people here (my self included) that literally didn't know that about fireworks in modern parlance. It's because talking about fireworks just doesn't ever come up in my life. But I think "mortar" is commonly known as a military kind of weapon even if you know nothing about fireworks.

I was unaware of that terminology applied to fireworks. Good to know!

Well US Army mortars tend to be 60-107mm in calibre and designed for anti-infantry use while fireworks are generally designed for aesthetic effects. There is certainly some overlap in the capability of fireworks and mortars to render damage to individuals and groups but this is generally a very limited shared range of effect, with mortars being explicitly designed to kill or incapacitate human targets.

What's the difference between mortars and fireworks? Damage. Suggesting people were dropping a plate, siting a mortar and undermining a building is a much stronger image than "Some bro threw an M-80 near some stuff." I am not downplaying the violence as I wasn't there, just pointing out the difference.