How many more times are we going to allow this to happen? The great bang, the tears, the devastation of property and lives, the great debate over whether we should have more enforcement, and then the amnesia, as within a few weeks we forget the carnage that dominated the news agenda just days before - and get on with our lives like nothing ever happened.
On June 7, 2002, the Buckland family were minding their own business while the man in the garage beneath their maisonette was mixing fireworks. There was an explosion and, although their lives were spared because they were out, their home was wrecked.
Since they were not insured, the family did the only civil thing they could and turned to the court, which found in their favour and awarded damages. However, they have not received anything and probably never will because the defendant is insolvent.
We talked about the disaster, and then forgot, till it happened again with more devastating and tragic consequences earlier this month. This time an innocent woman was killed. Not only did her family lose a wife and mother, but they lost their home. Several neighbours are homeless too, and were forced to endure the indignity of pleading for financial assistance.
Events since have revealed a trail of inadequacy at practically every level.
Though the Government has, primarily through the Housing Authority, done what it can to help the families, they are still being forced to rely on charitable handouts just to try to exist as they did before. Why is there not a specific disaster fund?
Since the Naxxar tragedy, the public has been shocked into a sense of vigilance it would have done well to display before, and reported other cases of illegal fireworks being produced. Yet even though this ushers in a welcome new reality - and the police are seemingly responding to it - the legal system is letting the side down.
First, in terms of legislation, since the maximum penalties available are so low that they are barely worthy of the name. The new Home Affairs and Justice Minister, Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, announced that the Attorney General is now working to amend the law to impose stiffer sentences.
But this leads to the second ancillary issue we have seen in recent days: an inconsistency among those presiding over the courts when it comes to sentencing. We cannot have one judge or magistrate taking a firm-handed approach, and another showing leniency for the same offence. That is neither fair on the victims, nor the offenders.
We would also be making a huge mistake to confine the fireworks debate to the current tragedy, and the domestic production of fireworks. There must be a wholesale change in the way factories are located, run and monitored.
It is an unfortunate fact - but at least one Dr Mifsud Bonnici has pledged to at long last confront - that the industry still remains without a regulatory team of experts, a recommendation made by the Pyrotechnics Commission back in 2005. This cannot happen soon enough.
When one of the most respected fireworks makers, Anthony Farrugia, died following a 'flash' last November, his colleagues said that if it happened to him, it could happen to anyone. The problem we have is that it seems to be happening to everyone.