I have had to deal with the banning of things like lasers

Years ago i had a grenade launcher attachment for a rifle that i used at work as a line throwing gun. when they banned them it cost us $1000s of dollars to do it the hard way.

The cops in Calif have a way to catch the jokers with laser pointers that aim them at aircraft.

The cop helicopters have a recorder on the FLIR unit and they record where the laser comes from and they send a few squad cars to where the laser was and they kick the door in.

Many of them are gang members screwing with the cops.

I think they need to get the military to drop a few 500 pound concrete filled laser guided practice bombs.

After a few got hit you would find no one wanting to do it.

A few years ago a cop in texas had a laser pointer aimed at his cop car and he shot the dude that aimed the pointer at him
the cop claimed that he thought that the laser was on a gun and that he was in danger.
the department ruled it as a justifiable shooting


[edit on 30-3-2008 by augoldminer]

Originally posted by Zaphod58
The problem here is that they CAN'T catch them. There are apartment buildings all along the flight path of most airports.

You offer a 10,000 dollar award for whoever tells on the person doing it. Those little teenage buddies will eventually bite. Then you make an example out of them and the problem will be solved.

Far too late to ban something in the billions already that we use every day. The answer is a thin film coating on the windows like welders use.

As a commercial pilot in training and a previous owner of a high powered DPSS laser I'll say they can be utter hell in the wrong hands, maybe some sort of licensing scheme? They are really no more safe than guns eyesight wise if not worse as they can 'ricochet' off anything shiny and have a good chance and frying your eyes depending on distance the beam has traveled or dispersed.

The average Joe does not research into them before purchasing, they just point and shoot. I did research and bought safety goggles etc etc.

edit: And making a coating to block out the green DPSS lasers on the windscreen of the plane would make it impossible to see any green starboard lights..

[edit on 30-3-2008 by GhostR1der]

Three points.

Banning things is, most of the time, not a solution at all and leads to some really ridiculous laws, they would have a fit if they know I have a 10 cm butterfly knife (i use it as a letter opener) yet it is fine for me to own a 25 cm sharp as a shaving blade kitchen knife.
I can conceivably strangle 2 flight attendents with my bare hands, use the knife and fork they bring me for dinner to incapacitate the pilot when he comes out to have a leak and then take out the pilot who is flying and is hurridly trying to get out of his belt and chair. But hey im standing free so Im faster anyway.
Why even bring boxcutters?
A couple strong guys, brains and finesse goes a very long way.

Banning weapons for the people is stupid, yes it's a shame people do stupid things and it's a shame there are some downright pieces of crap in our societies. But banning any and all arms to the populace in itself opens dangerous paths and ultimately the potential loss of freedom.
There are times when there is no army to do the dirty work, when it's your own government that is the enemy (the future is an open book, who knows who might try to become a dictator in the years to come).
How is a "free people" going to protect themselves from a future dictator?
Hitler banned weapons for all the same reasons, people abuse them, it's unsafe, someone might shoot at trains and planes, someone might ......
Only weeks after guns were banned and largely confiscated camps started opening.

Next thing they will be banning arms and feet, people have been known to be beaten and kicked to death you know.....

Banning is often a shame too, I saw a comment about astronomers possibly being duped with a ban on such lasers.
They banned ecstacy completely too, such a shame, a drug that actualy showed signs of curing several mental disorders, just because some people are stupid enough to abuse medicines as pleasure drugs.
Research has been halted on it so far so many a patient will miss out on a possible cure to his/her illness just because of stupid junkies willing to swallow just about anything to see if it gets them fubar.
You should see how much medicinal weed helps with arthritis and various other painfull diseases. It's a shame in many countries patients can not receive this treatment because politicians are paranoid about a weed that is far less harmful then the alcohol that you can get in pretty much every supermarket in the western world, which potentally makes banning of certain items yet another nasty thing: hypocritical.

3 points against outright banning of items, licensing is a far better solution because you minimize the negative side of a medallion while not making it impossible to benefit from the positive side.


[edit on 30/3/2008 by David2012]

BANNING lasers makes about as much sense as buying good locks. Locks only keep honest and stupid people out of your property. The criminals who are smart and intent will always find a way to get in.

It's the same with lasers.

The problem begins AT HOME. We are having children who are latch-key-kids, raised by a foreign nanny, or we're too busy worrying about how to get the money to keep up with the Jonses to PAY ATTENTION to what our children are becoming, right in front of us!

If one parent can't take the time to raise a child and be in the home for the formative years of the child's life, then why have the child in the first place? Your clock is ticking?? Oh, please... volunteer where you can get your Mommy-ticker stroked regularly! DON'T have children, and then pay someone else to raise them for you.

And when you DO have them, WATCH them; get to recognize their nuances, their quirks, their attributes and their short-comings. Don't leave that to someone else. The only way a child can be nurtured properly is when a parent cares enough to BE there!

And don't give me the b.s., "My parents both worked and I turned out okay." IF you did, and you have no visible psychological descrepancies, you're LUCKY. But you're NOT as well-rounded as you think you are... And do you know why? BECAUSE you are following in some of your parents' poor examples, and your children aren't getting all the love and attention and nurturing they should... because you don't know any better than what you're doing.

If we spend time with our kids, instilling in them not only what's right and wrong but WHY it's right and wrong, we can short-circuit a lot of the acting-out that has reared it's ugly head in the past two generations. Until we realize that children are our own responsibility, and put the thousands of hours into raising them properly and with love and common sense, all the Laws in the world aren't going to stop the guns, the lasers, the arrows, the drug use, the inability to reason, and life isn't going to be any better or safer for any of us. The spiraling down of the human condition will continue. And in 5 or 6 more generations, we'll be gone, but those who are left will be equivalent to the ones who solved problems with stick and stones instead of logic.

BANNING lasers makes about as much sense as buying good locks. Locks only keep honest and stupid people out of your property. The criminals who are smart and intent will always find a way to get in.

It's the same with lasers.

The problem begins AT HOME. We are having children who are latch-key-kids, raised by a foreign nanny, or we're too busy worrying about how to get the money to keep up with the Jonses to PAY ATTENTION to what our children are becoming, right in front of us!

If one parent can't take the time to raise a child and be in the home for the formative years of the child's life, then why have the child in the first place? Your clock is ticking?? Oh, please... volunteer where you can get your Mommy-ticker stroked regularly! DON'T have children, and then pay someone else to raise them for you.

And when you DO have them, WATCH them; get to recognize their nuances, their quirks, their attributes and their short-comings. Don't leave that to someone else. The only way a child can be nurtured properly is when a parent cares enough to BE there!

And don't give me the b.s., "My parents both worked and I turned out okay." IF you did, and you have no visible psychological descrepancies, you're LUCKY. But you're NOT as well-rounded as you think you are... And do you know why? BECAUSE you are following in some of your parents' poor examples, and your children aren't getting all the love and attention and nurturing they should... because you don't know any better than what you're doing.

If we spend time with our kids, instilling in them not only what's right and wrong but WHY it's right and wrong, we can short-circuit a lot of the acting-out that has reared it's ugly head in the past two generations. Until we realize that children are our own responsibility, and put the thousands of hours into raising them properly and with love and common sense, all the Laws in the world aren't going to stop the guns, the lasers, the arrows, the drug use, the inability to reason, and life isn't going to be any better or safer for any of us. The spiraling down of the human condition will continue. And in 5 or 6 more generations, we'll be gone, but those who are left will be equivalent to the ones who solved problems with stick and stones instead of logic.

They can have my laser when they pry it from my cold, dead hand! Okay, just kidding...sort of.

Just my two cents worth, but instead of rushing to make a new law or create a ban on an item that has many legitimate uses, why not make the government get off its duff and go find and arrest the perpetrators AND enforce the stiff laws already on the books? (They do have laws that cover such things in Australia, don't they?) I say, throw the scallywags in a deep, dark hole and keep them there 'till their hair turns gray.

Or if the government doesn't want to do their job, then maybe an old fashioned community "switching party" would be in order.

Like I said, just my two cents.

Forks are used to EAT, but where I am from they use them as weapons! SO, they must have been DESIGNED and continue to make forks to be used as WAEPONS. Great logic ya got,... seems like your logic has been turned into a weapon against your MIND... which one to we ban now? your LOGIC or your MIND.

Where are you from? I ask as we want to invade there next since you equip your army with forks.

This is an ineffective response to the topic.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Uh, yes they do still fly it. They are still responsible for landing and taking off, and that sort of needs them to be able to see. Do you have ANY idea how many runway incursions there are every MONTH? If a pilot couldn't see the runway, he'd never know there was another plane there and go around and we'd have THOUSANDS of people dying.

You do realize where this all ends if taken to a logical conclusion? Anything that could possibly used to hurt yourself or someone else is banned.

An example of living like that is a person in an asylum wearing a straight jacket.

I'm sure there are drugs that can help cases of paranoia as bad as this. Counseling can be effective, too.

Got no problem with them banning them or at the very least decreasing availabilty. They get sold at cheap shops/market stalls as novelty items along with girly lighters, pens, sparklers and party poppers for two bucks each.. the only thing i've seen people use them for is pointing at boobs and shining in people's eyes. I almost got into a fist fight after someone did that to me and I still had trouble seeing days afterwards.

Something that can cause eye damage should not be sold as a toy.

They do apparently get used for presentations etc. so I think it'd be fair to only sell them at office supply stores where brats don't frequent anyway.

[edit on 31-3-2008 by riley]

Originally posted by tezzajw
Ok, fine. Use your same argument for guns. They're also toys, so are we allowed to take them away or not?

A few people mis-use lasers, so does that give the GOVERNMENT the right to ban them for all users? I don't think so.

I live in Sydney where this took place, we have tight Gun controls, so taking these Toys away from these absolute Idiots is no prob for me, or the majority of Sydneysiders( especially those under the Flight path).....imagine what they would do if the COULD get Guns instead of just Lasers. I think the NSW govt is looking at restricting the import of the more powerful Lasers, not a total ban, Just like we restrict high power Auto-matic and semi auto-matic weapons.....makes sense to me. We voted our Govt. In. I would Expect this Kind of behaviour as it is protecting my right to not have a QANTAS 747 crash into my house.

The lasers that are sold at the toy stores are NOT the problem as they are very weak. The ones sold on the web and the ones from dvd burners are as they are strong, but only in the hands of an idiot.

Guns are meant for killing, lasers are meant for alot of things. So if they do ban lasers (even weak ones), then say goodbye to your cd players, dvd players, cd/dvd burners, laser printers, xbox, PS1-3. All the devices that have a laser in them will be banned, since thats what a ban really means. If where you live has a laser pointer ban and has not banned DVD burners or anything else that has a laser, then there will still be offenders! Banning is the very easy way out and just makes the doo-gooders happy so they can ignore the problem and think the problems solved. Banning guns doesn't work either.

God forbid if they bad flashing LED's because they can trigger epileptic seizures.

Update: A Channel 10 news report (five minutes ago) described how there was a top level meeting of ASIO officials in Canberra this morning. They're considering banning the importation of the more powerful laser pointers. Special users (such as astronomers) will have exemptions.

The NSW Premier Morris Iemma was filmed saying that it could result in a 'mass-murder' situation.

There was something like 300 incidents last year and they're averaging out to one every day.