Laser Pointers Classed as Weapons in Australia

An anonymous reader was the first to point to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald which says that New South Wales (of which Sydney is the capital) will prohibit the possession of certain types of laser pointers, defining them as weapons, and make it an offense to carry any laser pointer "without a lawful reason." (Similar coverage at news.com.au) Western Australia apparently beat NSW to the punch, and the federal government of Australia announced earlier this month it will treat laser pointers much like firearms, which, in Australia, is really saying something. The restrictions come as a reaction to incidents (not confined to Australia) in which the lasers were trained on planes, distracting pilots.

Comments

Think of the sharks!

[JoltCola]

I would make laser pointers illegal too with all those willing and able sharks out in the surrounding waters!

Shaky Logic

[Doc Ruby]

Have pilots really been blinded by lasers pointed from the ground? Because the pointer can't get within a thousand feed of a plane, and actually even more at the angles that can reach over the plane's body and into the pilot's windows. At that distance, these laser pointers' beams are spread out pretty wide, so the person pointing them can possibly see the dot from that far away. So the brightness on the tiny fraction of that dot's area that actually falls on the pilot's eye is pretty small. Even more problematic is that your hand shakes. It might be unnoticeable at close range, but tiny angular deflections at the base of an angle extending a quarter mile or more to a plane makes the dot wiggle all over the place. It's hard to aim the laser even close enough to stay anywhere on the whole plane, let alone through the refracting windows and into a pilot's eye, 1/8" across.

It just seem so unlikely. Is there any proven examples of this happening, or is it just paranoia, and maybe totally unrelated pilot errors they're conveniently blaming on something no one else saw, someone impossible to catch if they did exist?

Face + palm.

[rindeee]

So since a handful of people do something stupid with a laser pointer, AUS outlaws them. I've got to think that far more deaths are caused by car accidents as a result of people being 'brighted'. Will they outlaw high-beams. They should probably outlaw really bright directionally focused light sources altogether. Better outlaw water while they're at it. I mean, look how many people drown every year.