When you have a helicopter circling your house for hours, you do start to lose rational thought.

Sure but this is in the category of "I decided to shoot at the plane with my gun" type logic. What possible outcome is someone expecting from aiming a high power laser at an aircraft expecting?

Like the top-end of that is "after considerable discussion they abort whatever expensive activity they are engaged in and return to base". Literally everything else ranges from "inflicting grevious bodily harm" to "mass casualty event".

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fragmede 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The gravity of the crime to the one that commits it is lessened by the ease of committing that crime. Brutally stabbing someone to death is heinous because the person commiting that crime had to get up and personal with their victim and the weapon and the act. Meanwhile, if I angle my foot down by 10 degrees while in my car, I'm speeding, and hardly anyone considers that a reprehensible act that should ruin my life forever. The problem with lasers is there's no gravitas to them. They can be powerful and dangerous af, and barely make a sound. And they're way too easy to get off eBay. Shooting an RPG at a airplane... nevermind how big and heavy one is, how would I even get one? Operating one is non-trivial, too. Because a laser is a simple pushbutton to complete the circuit and turn it on, to the uncareful, and impulsive, you can commit a felony before your brain comprehends that it's even a crime in the first place. You have to really think things through before doing them an unfortunately not everyone is blessed with a brain that has that capability. I don't say this to excuse someone hurting other people, but to promote laser education.

	▲	8n4vidtmkvmk 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I do consider excessive speeding as reprehensible. A little over, fine, whatever, but there's a threshold where it becomes dangerously reckless. But otherwise I agree. Someone might not consider just how dangerous a laser pointer is. I do hope they know how dangerous their car is though.

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WarOnPrivacy 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I understand the frustration but in the case of aircraft, that's a nope-not-ever. Even a 50mw handheld can wreak havoc on night vision equip. Put away lasers until they're gone.

A larger but somewhat different issue is that pilots have some obligation to report laser sightings. Most reports are beams waving elsewhere and not striking their aircraft.

But even those sightings are an issue because officials commonly (and misleadingly) present the stats as if they were all aircraft strikes. News orgs repeat the claims without vetting.

Generally, I treat handhelds of >1W with weapon-ish caution. I won't point them in a direction where people are likely to be.

I have an LEP light and I'm more flexible with that but I still keep it off of moving objects.

For nightly walks, I carry a 21k lumen LED torch that helps with oncoming highbeams. The highest setting is a reasonable response to lightbars.