Laser Incidents With Aircraft On the Rise

EqualSlash writes "High-power laser pointers available for cheap are increasingly finding abuse as the ultimate long-distance weapons of pranksters and vandals. The Federal Aviation Administration says laser events aimed on planes have nearly doubled in the last year, leaping from 1,527 in 2009 to 2,836 in 2010. The highest number of incidents was reported at Los Angeles International Airport, which recorded 102 in 2010. Lasers pointed at cockpits can temporarily blind pilots, forcing them to give up control of an aircraft to their co-pilot or abort a take-off/landing. In March of 2008, unidentified individuals wielding four green laser pointers launched a coordinated attack on six incoming planes at Sydney Airport, which resulted in a ban on all laser pointers in the state of New South Wales."

Comments

How do you hit the cockpit?

[Nikker]

How do you manage getting a beam of light inside a cockpit that opens facing upward? Aside from banking sharply it doesn't make any sense.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

The pilots must be able to see the ground for landing and must be able to look down for traffic avoidance--if they can see the ground, someone on the ground can blast them in the eye with a laser. You are right though--someone directly below would have a hard time shining the laser into most cockpits and must be some horizontal distance away.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[dave562]

I can only speak to the approach into LAX, because that is the only major international airport that I have seen on a regular basis (unless you count PDX, but that is more regional). There are plenty of 4-5 story parking garages along the 405 as the planes are nearly down on final approach. A person could probably get another 5 feet of elevation for standing on top of a vehicle, maybe 6-7 feet if you find a big lifted monster truck or cargo van. All in total that is about 55 feet of elevation.

The flight paths on those planes is completely predictable. It would be fairly easy to get into the cockpit of some of those planes. A person would probably need a aim a few miles out. Once they were near the garage, the angle would be too extreme given the height of the cockpit.

How much energy would be needed to create a distracting level of laser light into the cockpit of a jumbo jet that is 5-10 miles away?

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never been in a cockpit, or used X-Plane or some other flight simulator, have you? You can't see the ground very well from a passenger jet, especially on approach where the plane is either pointing straight ahead or flaring. To shine a laser pointer into pilots' eyes the angle would be more horizontal than vertical. (Unless they're using reflection or refraction.) Not impossible, but difficult. These people must be very dedicated and nefarious. They deserve significant punishment if caught.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is possible, but much more fun to do to helicopters.

With a 200mW laser attached to a 10x50 binocs you can point pretty well, and see the pilot making funny faces too.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Depends on the optics and the weather, I would suspect.

On a clear day, with excellent optics, probably surprisingly little(In Lunar laser rangefinding experiments, the laser spreads from being a near-point-source to a mere 4 mile diameter spot across ~240,000 miles). Your not-at-all-pricey 250-500mW DPSS greens would probably do just fine, if you could keep them stable and on target.

If your optics are shit, or there is fog/dust/substantial thermal shimmer, requirements would go up markedly...

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Sam36]

No it is really pretty easy. Just tape the laser pointer to a pair of binoculars. With a little bit of playing around with the aiming, you will be able to look into the binoculars and see the laser hitting objects way far away very easily. Holding the binoculars while placing your arms on a table will give you very good stability. Works really great!

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[sunderland56]

The pilots must be able to see the ground for landing

So, planes can't land in fog, then?

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Illogical Spock]

You happen to live in Sydney?

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[MechaStreisand]

Indeed not. There has to be some visibility of the runway: for Cat IIIB, they have to be able to see the runway 150 feet away and 50 feet above. See here for more details.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[dave562]

If your optics are shit, or there is fog/dust/substantial thermal shimmer

Would the exhaust trail from the jets themselves fall under thermal shimmer? Or does that only matter when dealing with the atmosphere?

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

You sick mother fuck, I hope someone burns your eyes out with lasers and then you die in a fire.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[CohibaVancouver]

How do you manage getting a beam of light inside a cockpit that opens facing upward?

When the aircraft is in a landing approach it is angled downward. The nose is only 'up' when they flare out for landing.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

The pilot said so too, then burned in the fire when he crashed.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

... a hard time shining the laser into most cockpits and must be some horizontal distance away.

To which you reply

you've never been in a cockpit, or used X-Plane or some other flight simulator, have you?...To shine a laser pointer into pilots' eyes the angle would be more horizontal than vertical.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Jet exhaust would certainly induce a good bit of that; but only behind a given aircraft(and, being substantially hotter than the surrounding atmosphere, I assume that it would rise reasonably swiftly, so aircraft #1's trail wouldn't provide much cover for aircraft #2, unless they were landing them alarmingly close together...)

For somebody lasing from a position in front of the aircraft, I assume that the answer would be "yes; but irrelevant". If you were trying to hit from behind, or if your beam path was intersected by another approach path, it might be a more vexing problem.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to just drive yourself over or do we have to come pick you up?
-FBI

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the last year the patterns at LAX seem to have gotten a lot lower... Especially at night. I live 15 miles from LAX and at night they get my whole house to vibrate and hum. Couple that with the military shit coming out of Long Beach (used to be El Toro) and at night you sometimes get jets going one way and HUGE helicopters w/out lights going the other...at rooftop, or so it sounds like.

They're really starting to piss people off.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[X0563511]

If you nose down, you're doing it wrong. You should be level, and sinking. If you nose down without flaps, you'll be going forward to fast. If you nose down with flaps, you'll be going down too fast.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[CohibaVancouver]

Here's a scene I see repeated every day - Notice his nose is down until he flares:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdu7_2SjNQc

Not the best video, I admit, but what I found after 30 seconds of googling...

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an even sicker mother fuck, I hope die in TWO fires!

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that 150 feet horizontal and 50 feet vertical really means a heck of a lot when you've got a plane weighing 100 metric tons traveling at a horizontal speed of ~230 feet/second, with a mean vertical descent rate of 60 feet per minute. Even if a pilot could see something horizontally in less than one second, and had the reflexes of a jungle cat, you're never going to coax a jetliner to move its ass soon enough to make a difference.

Excepting the decision height, a landing in Cat IIIB conditions is about as close to no visibility as you'll ever see... As far as vertical, you're lucky to have a clear picture of the runway lights on a 3 degree approach in those conditions.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[JWSmythe]

    I'd have to think, for stability a laser emitter and binoculars or low range telescope on a rifle stock would be better. photographers using telescopic lenses have been doing this for a long time, especially for nature shooting, where a tripod isn't practical.

    For most folks who just picked up a cheap laser emitter, it doesn't exactly seem like they'd want to spend the money for binoculars nor a rifle stock. Unless of course they already have a binocular or telescope, and a BB rifle.

    I wonder how many of these incidents aren't malicious. There are plenty of laser devices for stage and outdoor performances too. In 2008, the FAA statistics say there were about 31.8 million flights. I assume the number of flights for 2010 is similar or greater than the 2008 number. If so, this involved 0.009% of the flights.

    Have you ever been to a shooting range, where someone was using a laser sight? It can be very scary. Most people can't point a gun steady enough to keep the point on the paper. That's only at a range of a few feet. Years back, I had a laser pointer, and lived in a 2nd floor apartment. At night when there was no traffic, I'd point it at street signs and tail lights of parked cars (they both reflect very well). Ok, I was young, and bored. I have steady hands, and can shoot firearms more accurately than most people. I could put the point on them very accurately at say 100 feet. At any significant distance (say 200'+), the beam divergence was pretty significant, so it had to hit something reflective to see it at all. As the range increased beyond that, the divergence would become greater (obviously), and even with a point the size of a truck, it was hard to put on target.

    At my local airport (a fairly busy international airport), the traffic pattern is at 1,500 feet (about 1,000 feet higher than any local structures). The FAA recommendation for the traffic pattern is 1,000 feet AGL, unless local conditions warrant otherwise (mountains, buildings, or noise abatement rules). So if it's hard to put a laser pointer dot accurately on something as big as a parked truck at around 200 feet or so, it would be damned near impossible to stay on a target at 1000+ feet traveling at 160mph.

    The other option would be that it's common to spot commercial entertainment lasers, from say outdoor concerts, theme parks, etc. They are not permitted to point any laser towards the eyes of the audience. Their only choice is to point them up. With that being true, a 0.009% chance of a pilot seeing a laser likely coincides with the chance of an aircraft intersecting the beam while in the pattern or on approach. Any higher than that, I'd say a pilot probably wouldn't even notice the dim light, or at best it would look like any other lights on the ground.

    I've only ever heard of two instances where someone was caught shining lasers at aircraft. One was a guy who had purchased a high power laser, and was caught when he was pointing it at a police helicopter (stable target, low altitude, ability to follow it to the offender). The other was the incident cited in the article, which would not be included in the FAA's statistics. With such little evidence of who the offenders are, it leaves plenty of opportunity for the evidence of pilots seeing lasers to be circumstantial at best in saying that the offenders were actually intentionally committing the acts.

    Sorry for rambling on there. :)

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I may be sicker, but you reposted my post above and got an "Interesting" mod. So stop bitching.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it is really pretty easy. Just tape the laser pointer to a pair of binoculars. [...] Works really great!

I can attest to this. I used to do this to mess with the drunks on the Strip at my college campus. I had a laser pointer, my roommate had binoculars, our window faced the Strip where all the bars are... much hilarity was found that year.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Arlet]

How do pilots manage to see the ground during landing inside a cockpit that opens facing upward ? Aside from banking sharply it doesn't make any sense.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[jafo]

You make some good points, that it would be hard to put a laser pointer on a jet that far away, and track it at 160MPH. However, it would be much easier if, instead of it passing by you, it were heading straight for you. Then it's clearly a case of self-defense.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you manage getting a beam of light inside a cockpit that opens facing upward? Aside from banking sharply it doesn't make any sense.

More importantly, why haven't they just put a polarized coating on the inside of the cockpit windows? I have a cheap, $3 pair of sunglasses I bought at a gas station with polarized lenses, and you can't see most laser pointers through them.

Seems like a fairly easy solution, and the pilots who have to land/takeoff into the sunrise/set would thank you as well.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[X0563511]

A small plane like that has a totally different landing profile than what we're talking about.

Watch a heavy land, and you'll see what I meant.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or better still, cut to ribbons by the dying craft's rotors...

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[h4rm0ny]

So why on Earth are planes designed so that pilots sit above the nose and can't see down, instead of below the nose and can't see up? Is it some psychological hang-up of the species that thinks you can only be in control of something if you're riding on top of it, or that being high-up has to mean you have the best view? Is it a prestige thing? Pilots should be under the nose so they can see what's below them. It doesn't matter how high up you go, you're not going to crash into anything (like what, the ISS?) but you do want to be able to see the ground below because the ground is hard.

Anybody on here designing the next generation of passenger jets? The gate^H^H^H^H target is down, gentlemen.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter how high up you go, you're not going to crash into anything (like what, the ISS?) but you do want to be able to see the ground below because the ground is hard.

Reminds me of a sign that was on the wall at pilot school:

Take-offs are optional. All landings are mandatory.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another video for you then: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6clGMhe0vg

As a pilot, lemme dumb-down the process for you...

When you put on flaps you increase the lift on the wings - and you start slowing down because the flaps are acting like air brakes as well. If you don't do anything with the elevator then you'll start gaining height. You kick in down elevator to compensate for the extra lift, which causes your tail to kick up. In other words, you're nose down. You only pull-up the nose approaching touch down to flare out.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I am airborne I can see the ground around me quite close to the aircraft. Anyone on a piece of ground I can see could illuminate me with a laser. In good weather I will often make a visual approach, looking out all along the final approach, a predictable path that is generally where these lasers are reported.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[GooberToo]

Simple. It matters what's in front of you and not so much what's below you. In other words, its more important to see where you're going rather than where you've been. Being up high also provides for better visibility when on the ground. Basically, it has absolutely nothing to do with any of the reasons you put forward. The cockpit is located where it is purely for reasons of practicality of design and safe operation.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[h4rm0ny]

Simple. It matters what's in front of you and not so much what's below you. In other words, its more important to see where you're going rather than where you've been.

I didn't say the cockpit should be behind, though, I said underneath. Isn't being able to see forward and down, better than being able to see forward and up?

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[moonbender]

Or watch this. Pretty crazy.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong! As a Captain for a major U.S. airline we can land without actually seeing the runway. I fly the Airbus 320. We can start an approach with 300 ft visibility but if it subsequently goes to zero, we can still land.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Mark J Tilford]

IIRC, anybody who's going to be pointing lasers into the air is supposed to file notice with the FAA; the FAA will notify any pilots who file a flight plan to avoid that area. A stage show will file the permits; small groups may fail to do so.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Skidborg]

Do you know what happens when a jet has to do a belly landing? Do you know where the front landing gear folds into?

Smarter people than you have applied hundreds of hours of their time to designing these things, don't think you can come up with something brilliant in five minutes.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, we do have to have 75 metres visibility, but for CAT IIIB we don't need to see the runway before we land. Last autoland I performed in an A320 had no decision height. The only requirement for 75 metre visibility is actually to allow the aircraft to taxi clear of the runway and find its way to a stand.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[SvnLyrBrto]

I don't beleive either that there's a secret conspiracy of terrorists out there trying to bring down aircraft with laser pointers. It's just a daft idea that fails the smell test.

Funny thing is... red laser pointers are so cheap now that on foggy nights (I live near the coast), I occasionally see some of the neighborhood kids playing Star Wars lightsabers with the things, the same way my friends and I used to with flashlights. Green, and even violet, pointers have come down in price online lately to the point that I think it's only a matter of a short time before the kids get their parents to buy them these so they can be Luke Skywalker or Mace Windu as well as various sith. And the police of these days have gotten so priggish that I'd not be surprised at all to hear on the news about then stomping into backyards or kicking down doors with their jackboots after some kid shined his laser pointer at a police or Coast Guard helicopter for a moment while outside playing.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[blindseer]

The location of the windscreen on an aircraft might have something to do with the fact that our eyes are near the top of our bodies.

Helicopters will have windows in the floor of the cabin so that the pilot can see the landing area. In a fixed wing aircraft the pilot only really needs to know if the wheels are between the lines on the runway. The altitude at that point is not terribly difficult to determine and there is typically plenty of room for error, a few feet up or down don't mean much if you have sufficient length of runway.

Also, there was an in air collision I heard about on the radio recently. A high wing light aircraft could not see the plane above and flew into it. The other plane was a low wing style and could not see the aircraft below. It would seem that in uncontrolled airspace the pilot would need to see both up AND down. In controlled airspace, like that in a commercial airport, the pilot doesn't need to see much at all really.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[.tekrox]

Mod parent up, I wonder this every time I heard\ about this on the news.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

i was too far away for that, sorry.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually a very clever insight. I can't think of a single benefit of having the cockpit on top...

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask these guys---> http://www.pprune [ DOT ] org/rumours-news/349414-l-sers-attacks-aircraft.html
All of em are pilots

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[clint999]

Thats why I said around and not in airports (like at the end of the tarmac just outside the fence, ect...)

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[X0563511]

Impossible to see from that angle. It looks level to me.

However, from my many experiences as a passenger AND in a simulator, you don't nose down unless you're too high on your glidescope or you've fucked up on your speed. If you're where you should be you shouldn't need to nose down below horizontal.

How many hours, and what planes? Pilot or FO? Does the pilot even let you touch the stick yet?

(and if you fly those little bush planes... that has almost no bearing on a heavy.)

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Culture20]

Do you know what happens when a jet has to do a belly landing?

No, but I know what happens to a WWII bomber... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0511124/

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[ArsenneLupin]

Just tape the laser pointer to a pair of binoculars.

... or to an astronomical telescope. Would work great for a stationary target, but not so well for something like a plane. Unless are very near to the airport, and the plane is aimed almost directly at you... but that would also make you very easy to locate.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[ArsenneLupin]

I hope they have surveillance cameras in these garages...

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[ArsenneLupin]

Notice his nose is down until he flares:

hehe, the only thing you can see flaring in that video is the sun (or whatever it is... maybe somebody is shining a laser at the camera from the other shore?)...

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Smallpond]

light from laser pointers is polarized, but the direction will be random. It will change with time and with how the pointer is held. Polarizing sunglasses only work to reduce glare because most surfaces reflecting the Sun are horizontal.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[GooberToo]

I didn't say the cockpit should be behind, though, I said underneath.

Right, which is exactly what I answered. Seeing the ground that is below you is ground that is behind you. It serves no purpose. Furthermore, jets climb fast and typically descend slowly. That means they need better visibility above the aircraft.

As I originally said, seeing what is behind you doesn't do anyone any good - especially when it comes with so many additional negatives, as I previously explained.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

haha! you guys measure stuff in feet.

that's just ridiculous

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! This one is in our jurisdiction!
-ASIO

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it is really pretty easy. Just tape the laser pointer to a pair of binoculars. With a little bit of playing around with the aiming, you will be able to look into the binoculars and see the laser hitting objects way far away very easily. Holding the binoculars while placing your arms on a table will give you very good stability. Works really great!

you just magnefied it to large are to see each letter to be printed

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[AmiMoJo]

In the early days it was very difficult to built a cockpit like that because the seats, instruments and controls needed to be mounted onto the solid frame of the aircraft. There was no such thing as a HUD so they had to use non-transparent displays, and the controls were mechanically connected to the rest of the aircraft so had to be both strong and in position for levering etc. Basically you could not build a glass cockpit until the 80s.

Even now though you want to be on top in case you hit the ground a bit too hard. No point having the pilot killed as the cockpit is crushed. Also pilots don't use the windows for landing that much, especially in larger aircraft. Instruments are the main source of information, even for lining up on the runway. In other words it wouldn't help that much anyway.

Re:How do you hit the cockpit?

[Aviation Pete]

So why on Earth are planes designed so that pilots sit above the nose and can't see down, instead of below the nose and can't see up?

simple answer: When turning, the pilot really has to look up in order to look ahead. Increase the bank angle, and it becomes obvious: A steep turn is almost a looping, turned sideways.

sad thing is ...

[markjhood2003]

They'll probably green lasers in the US before they'll ban semi-automatic handguns.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No joke, once they green the lasers it's all over.

Re:sad thing is ...

[oldmeddler]

And exactly what is sad about that?

Banning things has never worked and never will.

Re:sad thing is ...

[markjhood2003]

They'll probably green lasers in the US before they'll ban semi-automatic handguns.

Rats. ban green lasers, not green them.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Kitkoan]

Thats whats sad about it. They will just add it to the list of non-violent objects banned even though it won't work nor has ever worked. And people around will still be allowed to carry dangerous weapons like semi-automatic handguns around airports which can be very dangerous.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Haedrian]

If you outlaw laser pointers, only outlaws will have laser pointers.

Re:sad thing is ...

[st0rmshad0w]

Semi-automatic handguns have much shorter ranges.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Duradin]

And already have laws covering ownership and carrying.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly is that sad? I'd say each are just as menacing in the right hands wouldn't you? No of course you wouldn't, you've already made your stance clear. Truth be told, it wouldn't matter. If someone wanted to point a laser at a pilot they would and believe it or not, this includes whether or not said laser was *gasp* banned!

Re:sad thing is ...

[st0rmshad0w]

A handgun has precious little chance of knocking down an airliner from the ground.

And cars are much more dangerous weapons than handguns.

Re:sad thing is ...

[dgatwood]

Most modern aircraft can very nearly land themselves, so no, I would *not* say that a low power laser pointer is as dangerous as a handgun, even taking into account this unusual edge case....

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

And when has a laser pointer ever knocked down an airliner?

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Define modern.. if you mean most aircraft that actually fly on a regular basis, then 'some' modern aircraft can land themselves.. 'Most' cannot..

'Most' modern cars have reverse radars on them and can auto-parallel park, but they aren't on 99% of America's driveways, and even if you had one, you'd still look over your shoulder while reversing.

Re:sad thing is ...

[stms]

Since when are handguns allowed in airports? I mean besides Law Enforcement and Air Marshals. I'm assuming your not so stupid as to argue against them carrying guns.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Guns and lasers can both be deadly. They won't ban either because the American macho loves his toys. They should ban the lasers for light pollution alone.

Re:sad thing is ...

[jbell730]

Just wait until they accidentally green lasers.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they should ban Stadium lighting for light pollution.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Wyatt Earp]

There is a Federal program that allows armed air crew - Federal Flight Deck Officers.

Plus in places like Oregon it's technically legal to have a handgun on you up to where TSA screening takes place, although the Port of Portland doesn't agree, there are lawsuits about it.

Re:sad thing is ...

[AB3A]

A properly unloaded firearm in a locked case is permitted in an airport. The baggage is checked separately and tagged so that TSA knows it is there. Yes, this includes a handgun. It may seem counter-intuitive to those have never been in uninhabited areas, but a large caliber handgun is useful in case you are caught by surprise by wolves, boar, or bear. My cousin used to go on Salmon fishing trips in Alaska, and he always carried a .44 with him just in case he had to take down a bear. As far as I know, he never had to use it outside of the gun range, but better safe than sorry.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

and then they'll accidentally 93MB of RAR files.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Go fuck yourself. This American macho would put his foot up your ass if you said that to his face.

My guess is that there's already been a couple of American machos that's done this to you already.

U mad?

Re:sad thing is ...

[Opportunist]

Hmm... ponderponder... who is usually using laser pointers...

Consultants and other vendors of snakeoil who want to look snappy when they present their new trapezoid scheme...

Too late, we're already there.

Re:sad thing is ...

[countertrolling]

If you outlaw outlaws, only outlaws will be outlaws..

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

Banning things has never worked and never will.

Not true. It depends on what you're trying to ban: how common is it, how easy is it to get a hold of, how easy is it to make your own, how easy is it to detect, etc.?

For instance, banning marijuana has never been very successful, because 1) it's super easy to make your own, you just need seeds (it is, after all, a weed: weeds by definition grow easily), and 2) it's easy for other people to set up large-scale operations to make it and smuggle it.

Guns are in the middle: on this continent (Americas), guns are everywhere, so banning them in certain places doesn't work because people just get them in another place and take them where they're not supposed to. It probably works a lot better in the UK because they're an island, so once they've gotten the handguns away from the citizens, it's not that hard to control the import and export of them. Plus, they don't seem to have any domestic manufacturers of handguns, unlike both the USA and also many European countries (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic). Also, because so many guns are in the hands of civilians here, banning them wouldn't work because they're already out there (people aren't going to just turn them in when asked). Finally, guns are fundamentally rather simple mechanical devices; it's not that hard for someone with a machine shop to make their own.

Now for an example of something where a ban works, look at nuclear weapons. By their very nature, these things are really hard to make, and require huge amounts of money, plus access to uranium, and advanced technology to refine it into weapons-grade material. Look how much trouble the governments of Iran and North Korea are having in making their own nuclear bombs.

Of course, that's a little extreme, but how about other bombs? Those are illegal for citizens in most countries, but there's not a lot of trouble enforcing that ban, because again the materials are hard to find, or it's not that easy to make them, plus ready-made bombs aren't floating around in large quantities and easily smuggled (unlike recreational drugs for instance). Sure, you could make one with commonly-available household chemicals (bleach, etc.), but in my reading on that stuff, those kinds of bombs are very unstable, and most likely to injure or kill the bombmaker. They aren't stable explosives you can carry around and plant on a target and reliably detonate. There is one stable explosive you can buy legally in most states, called "tannerite", but the only way to ignite this stuff is to shoot it with a supersonic bullet (usually meaning a rifle), so that's not exactly practical if you're trying to set a bomb somewhere to do some mayhem. The materials for making stable, reliable, high explosives just aren't easy to get or make, so that's why we don't have people running around with grenades and rockets and such.

Now, when stuff is all around you, it's really impossible to enforce a ban. For instance, some people are banned from driving a car, because they've had their license suspended or revoked. How does that work out? Not well: they just hop in the car and drive anyway (since the state usually doesn't confiscate their car; even if they do, they take their family member's car).

With handheld lasers, enforcing a ban wouldn't be that hard, though it certainly wouldn't be 100%. First, they have to decide if they're banning only the super-powerful ones, or any laser pointer at all (including the small ones integrated with presentation remotes, or used as cat toys, etc.). Banning the latter would be pretty much impossible, because small low-power lasers are everywhere these days, and lots of people have small laser pointers. But the powerful ones aren't so common, nor so inexpensive. You can't make one yourself, as they use a special laser diode. So if they banned the importation of the pointers, and also of the components needed to make them, that would make it pretty hard to get them in, dependi

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

Here in Arizona, you can have a handgun on you in the airport (not past TSA though, of course), and AFAIK the airport does not disagree about this. There's very few places in this state you're not allowed to carry a gun: Indian reservations, Federal buildings (including USPS), and Tempe's downtown Mill Avenue district. There's also various private businesses that restrict them, but all they can do is ask you to leave.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

Yes, don't try to defend yourself against a bear with a 9mm. That'll just piss him off. I think a .44 Magnum is a minimum for bear defense.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Worthless_Comments]

How many years has it been since you were allowed to carry a loaded gun at the airport?

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

What about cars? Over 40,000 Americans die every year in vehicle accidents. Why not ban those? There's other ways to get around: buses, taxis, or if they'd fund it, SkyTran. According to something I read recently, it costs the state government nearly $500k to deal with every auto accident that involves loss of life or injury (police, courts, etc.). An advanced, personal rapid transit system would more than pay for itself in light of that. It's costing us about $20 Billion a year to deal with auto accidents.

As for "toys", guns aren't toys, they're for self-defense. What are you going to do if a gang of thugs decides to attack you and rape you (or your wife)? Maybe you're fortunate to live in a country (judging by your poor command of English) where violent crime isn't a big problem, and you don't have regular violent home invasions. We Americans aren't; this is a dangerous country (esp. the urban areas), and there's a lot of hardened criminals running around committing violent crimes. Would you prefer that women be unarmed and unable to defend themselves against much larger attackers?

Re:sad thing is ...

[SteveFoerster]

Also, because so many guns are in the hands of civilians here, banning them wouldn't work because they're already out there (people aren't going to just turn them in when asked).

Actually, I expect many Americans would turn them in -- starting with the ammunition, one round at a time.

-=Steve=-

Re:sad thing is ...

[willy_me]

Father had a .44 for bear - didn't work out that well. Very difficult to aim when standing alongside brush and other obstacles. Turns out that a standard 12 guage is far more effective. They are more difficult to carry then a handgun but easier to use and still much lighter then a rifle. There are pros and cons like with any other decision. Anyone wanting protection from bear/wolf/boar should at least consider the shotgun. They are easier to use which makes them better suited to those not familiar with guns.

On a side note - wolves really do not threaten humans. There are very few cases of wolf attacks - but it does happen (unlike what some others like to claim.) They pose a much bigger threat to animals/livestock that you might have with you when in the back country. They routinely follow dog sleds hoping that a dog will stray back from the sled - which they would instantly kill. Happens all the time to my father + his sledding buddies - but they don't bother carrying guns for wolf protection. If a wolf is going to get your dog then you can bet that they will do it without giving you the opportunity to shoot. You generally do not even see them (unless on a lake) - you just hear them howling all around you. The bigger danger is from moose - I know several people who have lost multiple dogs to moose attack. And I know one guy who killed a moose who got into his dogs with a snow hook (used to "hook" the sled to the snow - basically a ~3lb piece of metal.) Because the dogs are all tethered together, they don't stand a chance against a moose.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Tacvek]

Actually the law is quite clear that gun cases are not permitted to be tagged, since that would make it far to easy for a gun to be stolen (pick any tagged cargo), and used in some crime.

Re:sad thing is ...

[petermgreen]

You can't make one yourself, as they use a special laser diode.
If you just want a laser to cause mayhem with then afaict the ones out of DVD burners are far nastier than even the powerfull end of laser pointers.

Re:sad thing is ...

[SuricouRaven]

This is true. You need a little understanding of electronics to make a current-limited power source, and a little skill with mechanical engineering to mount a focusing lens, but it isn't that hard.

Re:sad thing is ...

[similar_name]

The truth of the matter is bans depend on how many people support the ban. There is some point in a populace where a ban is supported and thus is effective. You speak of Iran and N. Korea being examples of nuclear bans working. Really??? Technology/infrastructure is limiting them more than some 'ban' imposed by other nations. They are going slower because other nations are not doing it for them, they are not going slower because of a ban.

As far as other bombs go, ask people in OKC how affective that is. A ban on bombs works because most people here don't want to bomb anything. All bans work or don't work depending on whether people go along with it or not.

Heroin is not easy to make yourself, nor is it easy to setup growing/refining operations and yet I could get some with a phone call. Do you think Cocaine is easy to make from scratch? The reason the ban doesn't work is because lots of people ignore the ban.

Banning cigarettes would be far less affective than just everyone thinking they aren't cool. In some cases a ban can actually increase the use of something. Banning underage drinking seems to cause more underage binge drinking than in countries where there isn't a minimum age for alcohol.

Re:sad thing is ...

[robot256]

Outlaws are already outlawed, thanks to our friends at the Department of Redundancy Department.

Re:sad thing is ...

[dgatwood]

First, let me amend that to say "most commercial aircraft". I'm deliberately ignoring small private planes, since I'm assuming this is primarily about major airports, and private planes tend to avoid those like the plague because of the landing fees.

Second, I said "can very nearly land themselves", not "can land themselves". By that standard, it covers nearly every large plane that is still in the air. Sure, some airlines have elected to cut corners and buy planes with reduced autoland support, but it has been an option in most large planes for at least thirty years. The first autoland-capable planes came out in the 1960s.

Now if you're going to be really strict and narrow the definition to planes capable of CAT III autoland, then yes, the percentages go down, but even that technology dates back to the mid-1960s technologically. Either way, it isn't exactly new tech, nor particularly rare, AFAIK. It is certainly not rare or new in the way that rear-facing radar in cars is.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Montezumaa]

What the fuck does semi-automatic handguns have to do with this? Stay on-topic.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting implications for my AK that has a mounted green dot laser.

Lol, the laser getting banned before the assault rifle.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Capt. Skinny]

Since when are handguns allowed in airports? I mean besides Law Enforcement and Air Marshals. I'm assuming your not so stupid as to argue against them carrying guns.

You must have an awful lot of faith in the vetting and training practices for law enforcement officers and air marshals. I'm sure there are non-stupid arguments to be made against armed police.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

You speak of Iran and N. Korea being examples of nuclear bans working. Really??? Technology/infrastructure is limiting them more than some 'ban' imposed by other nations. They are going slower because other nations are not doing it for them, they are not going slower because of a ban.

You seem to be confused. There's no ban inside these countries: their governments are acting according to their own laws. The "ban" is that other governments are embargoing any materials which would help them to make their own bombs: centrifuges, various industrial equipment, etc. And so, the ban is working: these countries haven't been terribly successful so far. NK has been more so, with one very low-yield test.

Just like a ban on high explosives limits an American citizen to whatever he can make in his garage, the international ban (really embargo) on NK and Iran is limiting them to what they can make all by themselves, which has severely limited them. No, it isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than nothing: without an embargo, these countries would simply buy the equipment they needed, and they'd already have high-yield bombs by now. Just like I could buy some C-4 if it weren't banned, instead of trying to make it myself (which is probably not feasible).

As far as other bombs go, ask people in OKC how affective that is.

Go try to buy yourself enough fertilizer to blow up a building and see how successful you are. Or go try to buy some demolitions explosives. These things are tracked and limited now by the government.

Heroin is not easy to make yourself, nor is it easy to setup growing/refining operations and yet I could get some with a phone call. Do you think Cocaine is easy to make from scratch? The reason the ban doesn't work is because lots of people ignore the ban.

Wrong. These things aren't banned everywhere: it's perfectly legal to make heroin and cocaine in various central and south American countries, so it's made there, and smuggled here. As I said before, bans don't work so well when it's easy to get it from somewhere else. Besides, it's apparently not that hard to make cocaine, since a bunch of uneducated people in Columbia can do it just fine in makeshift buildings in the jungle. That doesn't sound like something difficult to me, just something that requires 1) farmed coca leaves, and 2) some manpower. That's not at all like something that requires high-tech machinery to manufacture.

Banning cigarettes would be far less affective than just everyone thinking they aren't cool.

Yes, again, because it would be easy to get around the ban: they'd simply grow tobacco elsewhere and import it here, just like they do with other drugs. Or, they'd grow it here, just like they do with pot. It's a plant, not a manufactured item. All you do is stick it in the ground and let it grow. Sure, you can get higher quality with better farming techniques or whatever, but these plants aren't genetically engineered, they're found in nature.

Now, for an alternate example, look at microprocessors. Suppose the government decided to ban all CPUs with more power than PIII. And suppose all other industrialized nations passed the same ban. Of course, they wouldn't be able to get all the ones already made, but they could easily stop all new ones from being made. Fabs are huge and extremely expensive, and it's not like you could set one up in a hut in the jungle somewhere. The knowledge needed to make CPUs is staggering, so getting a group of uneducated third-worlders isn't going to help you. Even if you have a few people who know a lot about them, it's not something you could possibly make in your garage because of the materials and equipment needed, not to mention the enormous capital costs. So here, if the governments decided to make high-power CPUs for themselves only, and ban them for everyone else, that ban would be very effective, and there's really nothing you or anyone else could do about it, even if all the people did want to ignore the ban.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cars are far less dangerous weapons than handguns. They take much longer to load, they can't be concealed, and they are likely to harm anyone actually trying to use one as a weapon. You can't unthinkingly pull out a car when an argument gets a bit too heated. You can't rob a convenience store by pulling a car on them. You can't use a car to hijack a plane.

Plus, trigger locks come standard on cars :P

Re:sad thing is ...

[nospam007]

"Finally, guns are fundamentally rather simple mechanical devices; it's not that hard for someone with a machine shop to make their own."

Exactly! I never understood why professional killers or real terrorists (no shoe- and underwear-bombers) would use a bought weapon that anybody can identify, just make your own. It's much easier to make a shooting object that's easily concealed than fitting a gun into an existing object. All the smallest CNC and other computer-driven equipment are large enough to make guns. I knew a guy who did a .22 one out of nylon. The barrel was as thick as an arm, but it worked.
Perhaps somebody could print one with a makerbot?

Re:sad thing is ...

[Wyatt Earp]

Yea, its the same in Oregon, except for the fighting with the Port of Portland, and here in Alaska.

No guns in schools without permission of the administration, court houses, or bars. No permit for carry conceal but if you are stopped or interact with Law Enforcement you have to let them know you have one on you.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

A couple of reasons:
1) Not everyone is that handy with machine tools.
2) The barrel is the most difficult part of the gun; it needs to be rifled to get good accuracy, and needs to be forged of high-grade steel.
3) You can make crappy guns with pipes and such, but they're not going to be accurate or reliable.

So basically, even if you could somehow get rid of all manufactured guns, people would still be able to make their own. However, they wouldn't be as good as the manufactured ones. So it's really more of a last resort.

Now, suppose the government banned handguns, but not rifles. In this case, people would be able to make handguns from rifle parts, such as using the barrels and cutting them to smaller lengths; this would give them good accuracy that they wouldn't get with home-made barrels.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

Yep, basically the same here. I forgot about schools and courthouses. However, you can carry into bars now; that was lifted a year ago. Of course, most bars post a sign forbidding them anyway, but there's no law against it.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

How many years has it been since you were allowed to carry a loaded gun at the airport?

Every single wonderful day I live in this
beautiful desert, Phoenix.

I also enjoy carry into banks... although
it's less of a 'kick' now that anyone can
do it and you don't need a CCW license.

Even bars now... wow the one up the
road, when the place is packed you're
going to be bumping into wheelguns
and arm cannons left an right.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Kitkoan]

Thats why I said around and not in airports (like at the end of the tarmac just outside the fence, ect...)

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

My Sister was bitten by a moose...

Re:sad thing is ...

[lwsimon]

Do you think they'll accidentally the whole thing?

Re:sad thing is ...

[fishbowl]

Handguns are allowed in my local airport right up to the entrance to the security checkpoint. You can carry openly, with a sidearm on your hip or whatever, or concealed. If you are traveling with a firearm you don't have to put it in the case until you are at the baggage desk, and even if you do, you still have to remove it to show them that it's not loaded and that ammunition is in a separate case. But you can have it loaded and on your hip right up to that point.

Re:sad thing is ...

[fishbowl]

>There are very few cases of wolf attacks - but it does happen

I take it you can document an unprovoked attack on a human by a wolf in the wild? One single incident in all of recorded history?

Re:sad thing is ...

[fishbowl]

There's not a federal law against it, outside the secure areas. The laws of the state and/or municipality apply to those areas. At the Tucson airport you can carry loaded firearms openly, and concealed with a permit, in the parking areas and in all the business areas except bars.

Re:sad thing is ...

[fishbowl]

No, they always seem to be waiting for someone else to start the revolution for them. When someone actually does fire the first shot for them, they don't follow through, they just brand them as crazies and continue on in their cowardice.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Semi-automatic handguns have much shorter ranges.

So do single action handguns. Do you have any idea what "semi-automatic" even means? This is one of the stupidest, most overused fearmongering words favored by reporters when writing on gun issues (much like Glock and assault rifle.)

All "semi-automatic" means is that every time you pull the trigger, a bullet comes out. Every double action revolver, magazine-fed pistol, gas- or recoil-powered shotgun, gas or recoil-powered rifle, etc. etc. etc. produced in the past 100 years is a "semi-automatic". Unless someone has a bolt action rifle or pump shotgun, odds are what they're holding that goes "bang" is semi-automatic.

I despise this word because it's the no-brainer, de facto adjective reporters attribute to guns used in crimes ("the shooter in the heinous assault was reported to be armed with a semi-automatic pistol") because it sounds scary and provokes a fear response in others who know just as little as the reporter about firearms.

It's identical, I'm not joking now, to reporting on a 30 car pileup in the following manner: "A tragic accident today as 30 four-stroke-engine fossil-fuel powered automobiles were involved in a pileup on route 73".

This doesn't incense me for political reasons (I'm actually pretty left of center), it incenses me for ones of ignorance. It's a cheap cop-out of a word used by those trying to evoke a knee-jerk reaction without any sound understanding of the fundamentals of firearms or their operation. Unless the shooter was using a hunting rifle or a pistol from Wyatt Earp's era, it's completely and entirely superfluous.

Re:sad thing is ...

[stms]

Ok, fair point I concede to that.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

A single person gunning down a politician IS a crazy person. The only way a revolution ever works is to have a sufficient number of people organized and committed to the plan beforehand. This is usually called a "coup", and renamed to a "revolution" after it gains steam and popular support and starts looking successful. It doesn't start with one person shooting, and hundreds or thousands of people spontaneously joining in.

Just look at how America's Founding Fathers revolted. There were some riots and such beforehand due to very unpopular Crown policies and taxes, but the real revolution was carefully planned and prepared for by high-ranking, experienced people.

Shooting some random politician (not even one that's nationally known or especially notorious), or blowing up some unimportant Federal building, is NOT the start of a revolution, it's just some nutcase who thinks he's starting one. If you don't have plenty of people already backing you up before the first shot is fired, you'll never succeed.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. (although seriously, they're rare, that's the only one on record.)

Re:sad thing is ...

[stms]

Perhaps there are but the argument against them is that if a terrorist, crazy person ect. decides to attack an air port or where ever (with a weapon) and law enforcement don't have guns. He'll be able to go on at least a 5 minute killing spree before the SWAT or whoever is qualified to use weaponry gets there to stop him.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Scarletdown]

We prefer to be called the U.S. DRD Department of the U.S.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Oligonicella]

"Cars are far less dangerous weapons than handguns."
People have been purposely run over and killed. Dead is dead.

"They take much longer to load,"
I can start my car and get it moving in maybe five seconds.

"they can't be concealed,"
But they are commonly out and about, looking for all the world like transportation.

"and they are likely to harm anyone actually trying to use one as a weapon."
See number. Add to that smashing someone into a building. Air bags go off and the only one hurt seriously is the dead guy.

"You can't unthinkingly pull out a car when an argument gets a bit too heated."
You can't unthinkingly pull out a gun either. It takes a decision. But yes, people have run other people in the heat of anger.

"You can't rob a convenience store by pulling a car on them."
Cars have been driven through convenience store fronts to perform robberies.

"You can't use a car to hijack a plane."
This one you got right.
You can use one to stop a plane from taking off or landing though.

Re:sad thing is ...

[LoRdTAW]

"You can't make one yourself, as they use a special laser diode."

Actually a green laser starts out as a red laser. First the red laser is used to pump a YAG crystal that creates an infrared beam. That infrared beam is then sent through a LBO (Lithium triborate) crystal which doubles the frequency to green light. Look up NdYAG on Wikipedia for more information.

So its not impossible at all, it just takes a little know how and skill to do so. Also high power laser diodes are readily available from hobbyist sites as well as eBay. Even small NdYAG lasers with pulsed/continious power ratings over 1 watt are available on those sites as well.

Re:sad thing is ...

[dangitman]

It may seem counter-intuitive to those have never been in uninhabited areas, but a large caliber handgun is useful in case you are caught by surprise by wolves, boar, or bear.

Uninhabited areas? If there are such animals there, isn't the area inhabited by wolves, boar, or bear?

Re:sad thing is ...

[shentino]

IIRC, CHP will confiscate your vehicle if you're caught driving while suspended.

The only way you can get it back is to file a stolen vehicle report and run your borrower in for grand theft auto.

Re:sad thing is ...

[alnjmshntr]

Using a .44 to defend yourself against a bear is about as stupid as you can get. Bear spray is far, far more effective especially in a close encounter which is the most dangerous situation when encountering bears. Even more effective is knowledge of how to avoid bears and what actions to take when you do encounter them.

And needing a gun for protection against wolves? Really? Does your cousin know anything about the wild?

A gun is useful for killing things for food. Other then that it is useless.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Eudial]

Banning things takes an effort proportional to the demand for them (making prostitution and drugs among the things that are unfeasibly difficult to ban, only serving to create an uncontrollable shadow market fueling organized crime with money). But green laser pointers aren't in particularly high demand, so banning them would be plausible. But rather than doing that, the best option would probably be to regulate their sale so that people who legitimately need them can have them, while the unkempt masses can't. Obviously this wouldn't completely prevent them from getting in the wrong hands, but it would stem the flow. Also, as laser equipment is quite sensitive and prone to breaking down, existing laser pointers should not become a long-term problem.

Re:sad thing is ...

[realityimpaired]

Banning cigarettes would be far less affective than just everyone thinking they aren't cool. In some cases a ban can actually increase the use of something. Banning underage drinking seems to cause more underage binge drinking than in countries where there isn't a minimum age for alcohol.

I think France has the drinking age thing right. Far better than things are over in North America... there's no limit if your parents order it and give it to you. It's 14 to order beer or wine on your own. And it's 16 to order hard liquor on your own. By contrast, the driving age is 21. By the time most people get behind the wheel of a car, they've already had that chance to drink themselves stupid and realize it isn't as much fun as they thought it was.

I seriously wish they'd do that over here. And I felt that way before I turned 21, in full awareness that it would have meant giving up my license for a few years.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

...It probably works a lot better in the UK because they're an island, so once they've gotten the handguns away from the citizens, it's not that hard to control the import and export of them. Plus, they don't seem to have any domestic manufacturers of handguns, unlike both the USA and also many European countries (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic)...

Paradoxically, since the UK Government went apeshit on the gun laws, it has become *easier* to obtain handguns via criminal channels (in the past, .22 calible pistols were the norm, now 9mm is the new .22, and, if I so wished, I could obtain one within a week - and at a reasonable price, I hasten to add.)

At the same time they were banning legitimately held .22 target pistols, they were ignoring the fact that a fair number of large calibre (mainly American) weapons were coming into the country via gangs operating in some of the major cities, and now, thanks to the influx of Eastern Europeans, we have a choice of Ak-47s and Makarovs..

yes, banning things works wonders..that's why I occasionally hear semi/fully automatic gunfire occasionally at the weekends here in the UK.
 

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooh, tough talk from someone hiding behind a FUCKING KEYBOARD. There's nothing worse than a tough talking whilst hiding in mum's basement, lame ass piece of shit GEEK TROLL. Size up mutherfucker, you don't know who the fuck you're talking to.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck, here in LA we carry AKs just to walk down some streets.

Re:sad thing is ...

[scdeimos]

Fish and Game Officials Hopeful Wolf Attacks Will Soon Stop

Wolves attack joggers' dogs on Fort Rich

Bold Anchorage wolves attack dogs, circle joggers

Woman, dogs attacked by Alaskan wolves

Teacher killed by wolves in Alaska, police say

Awww man, you only asked for one.

Re:sad thing is ...

[freightdog]

Second, I said "can very nearly land themselves", not "can land themselves". By that standard, it covers nearly every large plane that is still in the air.

The problem is, getting 99% of the way to landing is not the same as landing. UAL232 made it 99% of the way to a successful landing through the extrarodinary efforts of the crew, but it was still a tragic event.

Re:sad thing is ...

[choko]

"Making up temporary snail-mail addresses isn't as easy as making up temporary email addresses."

It's not as difficult as you might think, especially in neighborhoods with abandoned houses. It's a pretty common tactic for smuggling drugs, which as you point out, isn't that difficult.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, banning nuclear weapons has kept them out of the hands of you and I- or do you think it's the fact that it costs several hundreds of millions of dollars to launch a basic nuclear program? International law hasn't kept North Korea from building several. Or Iran, for that matter.

As for "Tannerite"- it's simply a mixture of two easily obtainable oxidizers and two atomized metals. Easy to make on your own. One of the oxidizers- the only one you need, really- can be obtained at your local drugstore as part of a popular product. Doesn't take a bullet to ignite it, either; pack it in a container, and a simple fuse will do it. (I spent a year in the entertainment pyrotechnics industry and learned a few things.)

Re:sad thing is ...

[sourcerror]

Germany has similar gun laws like Britain, so that point is moot.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Worthless_Comments]

http://www.opencarry.org/airport.html

My apologies. I knew it was prohibited in my state, and assumed it was elsewhere. I was clearly mistaken.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Greyfox]

Shotgun's better for home defense than a handgun too, from what I've heard. You don't need to be as precise with the aiming and the noise it makes when you chamber a round is very intimidating.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Z8]

Nice, the story is about lasers dazzling pilots and the most informative thread is about wolf and moose attacks.

Re:sad thing is ...

[ConceptJunkie]

It's an interesting way of thinking, but again the problem is that driving is simply much more necessary in most of the U.S. because we are so much spread out.

I think the age 21 laws in the U.S. are ridiculous although I understand the reasons for them being made. Amidst the increasing infantilization of our society and trends away from respecting and demanding personal responsibility, it pretty much becomes mandatory to keep absurd numbers of young people from self-destructing.

You can either have a libertarian society where the population is strongly rooted in moral tradition and people generally police themselves or you can have a libertine population without the deep moral roots, and your society will have to become more and more totalitarian in order to keep dissolving into anarchy.

The U.S. used to be the former, now it's the latter.

Re:sad thing is ...

[ConceptJunkie]

Yeah, but most of us just call it "Congress".

Re:sad thing is ...

[similar_name]

Go try to buy yourself enough fertilizer to blow up a building and see how successful you are.

By your own admission it's hard to ban things that are readily available. I live in the bread basket of America, it's not as hard as you might think to steal it. Additionally, fertilizer is not the only thing that can go boom. There are plenty of ways to make an IED.

Wrong. These things aren't banned everywhere: it's perfectly legal to make heroin and cocaine in various central and south American countries

I may have missed it but I couldn't really find any countries that allow more than possession of 1g. Peru and Bolivia seem to be the most lax about it but even there processed cocaine is illegal. Hardly perfectly legal to make.

I get what you are saying though. If something is difficult to make with present technology then it can be banned. At least until someone figures out a way around it. I guess my issue is I don't see that as being an effect of the ban and more an effect of technology/resources. In other words I can ban you from making an air craft carrier, but I can't really say my ban is effective. It's really more that you wouldn't have been able to make one anyway. If you have to put conditions like every country has to adopt the ban and it has to be extremely difficult for anyone to make it to begin with it really limits the point of a ban. Pakistan, India, and N. Korea all aquired nukes after the Non Poliferation Act came into force. Even South Africa developed nukes but later dismantled them. I suppose if you consider slowing the rate of use for something to be effective then bans work (sometimes). If a ban is supposed to eliminate something completely, then I'm not sure of any bans that have worked.

At a minimum bans are less affective in free countries, to a large extent because people in free countries have a culture of doing whatever they want. Which was my point. Bans are only effective when the populace agrees to them. Or (for your cpu example) in the international community, bans are only effective when countries agree to them.

In summary you can't ban something people can get and banning something people can't get is like this marble in my pocket that protects me from bears (no cause and effect).

Re:sad thing is ...

[similar_name]

but again the problem is that driving is simply much more necessary in most of the U.S. because we are so much spread out.

The age could be raised to 18. I didn't get a car until I was 18 (license at 17) and there was no public transport in my town. I had a job at 15(part time) and I didn't need a drivers licence. There is a difference between necessity and convenience.

You can either have a libertarian society where the population is strongly rooted in moral tradition and people generally police themselves or you can have a libertine population without the deep moral roots, and your society will have to become more and more totalitarian in order to keep dissolving into anarchy.

Deep moral roots didn't have much to do with anything. Slavery, lack of women's rights, dueling, clearing the frontier of savages were all perfectly acceptable for a time. The truth is that over time each side of our political spectrum has whittled away at our rights often under the guise of morality. That and technology has limited our privacy and ability to break laws that don't effect anybody else. There was plenty of murder and crime going on in America before our so called moral decline. If anything we recognize those atrocities more. It has little to do with policing ourselves vs being policed and everything to do with taking away our rights to do whatever we want as long as we don't hurt anyone else. Morality has nothing to do with needing a totalitarian government. Deep moral tradition is typically the rallying cry of a totalitarian government, not the other way around.

Amidst the increasing infantilization of our society and trends away from respecting and demanding personal responsibility, it pretty much becomes mandatory to keep absurd numbers of young people from self-destructing.

And yet Europe which is often criticized for being very socialist and demanding less personal responsibility than America doesn't have as big a problem with underage drinking as we do. It gets kind of circular here. It's mandatory to have a (relatively) high drinking age because of the decline in personal responsibility. So we justify denying personal responsibility because people don't have personal responsibility.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The same can be said about you, stupid.

I am in Atlanta, Georgia. Meet me somewhere and I will beat you to a bloody pulp.

Do it now, faggot, or forever be considered a basement dweller.

Name the time and place, dickwad. DO IT.

You have no fucking idea who I am or what I am capable of.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Spazzz]

Why is that sad?

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

I may have missed it but I couldn't really find any countries that allow more than possession of 1g. Peru and Bolivia seem to be the most lax about it but even there processed cocaine is illegal. Hardly perfectly legal to make.

It's legal to make in the countries which create most of it and export it here. How do you think Pablo Escobar was so successful for so long?

Sure, some group calling themselves "the government" may have passed a law against it, but that doesn't mean squat. They weren't the true government, Escobar was. Laws are meaningless if you don't have the power to enforce them. It's just like northern Mexico today: the de facto government is the drug cartels, as admitted by the newspapers there, not the organization based in Mexico City. Therefore, making and smuggling drugs are de facto legal in northern Mexico right now. Similarly, making cocaine was fully legal in Columbia the entire time Escobar was in power there, despite any assertions to the contrary by a powerless "government".

I suppose if you consider slowing the rate of use for something to be effective then bans work (sometimes). If a ban is supposed to eliminate something completely, then I'm not sure of any bans that have worked.

You can't expect a ban, or any law for that matter, to work perfectly and eliminate something completely. Rape and murder are banned too, but that doesn't stop people from doing it occasionally; when they're caught, they go to prison for a very long time. The point of most laws is to deter undesirable activity, usually through punishment after-the-fact. With bans, there's both punishment if you're caught with the contraband, and there's also various mechanisms to make it difficult for you to get the contraband in the first place. Of course, when you're talking countries instead of people, it's a little different as you can't just grab Kim Jong Il and throw him in prison, and you can't execute search warrants and confiscate nuclear materials, but they do have embargoes.

At a minimum bans are less affective in free countries, to a large extent because people in free countries have a culture of doing whatever they want. Which was my point. Bans are only effective when the populace agrees to them. Or (for your cpu example) in the international community, bans are only effective when countries agree to them.

Not necessarily. If the American government seized all CPU fabs inside its borders, and banned higher-power CPUs, even if other countries built their own fabs and succeeded in making them, it'd still be harder to get them here (though not impossible). It'd depend partly on the demand of course, and on how good the enforcement actions are: how well will Customs check all incoming shipments? Obviously, the very small size of a CPU would be a challenge. At any rate, this would drive up the cost of these CPUs greatly, since they'd now be a black-market item.

Another example might be cars (a favorite Slashdot example). What if the US government banned all BMWs? That one would be a lot easier to enforce. First, cars are really big, so it'd be pretty easy for Customs to make sure none are being imported. Second, it'd be hard for anyone to have one and not get caught, unless they store it in a barn somewhere and never actually drive it (which is the whole point of a car), because cops on the lookout for these illegal cars would recognize them quickly.

Re:sad thing is ...

[similar_name]

Not necessarily. If the American government seized all CPU fabs inside its borders, and banned higher-power CPUs, even if other countries built their own fabs and succeeded in making them, it'd still be harder to get them here (though not impossible).

We already know our borders are a sieve since we both seem to agree the ban on drugs doesn't stop them. Cocaine and Heroin are not made in the U.S. and customs does not stop them in any meaningful way.

It'd depend partly on the demand of course

My point exactly.

Your whole argument that south american governments could not enforce their ban is exactly my point. The populace, whether led by Escobar or not didn't go along with it and so it was de facto legal. In the same way if enough people still drive and smuggle BMWs they will be de facto legal. It all depends on how many people go along with it.

There are many areas of the United States where enough people smoke pot that it's de facto legal to smoke in public because nobody cares. I used to frequent a bar in Oklahoma where I smoked pot regularly. I even sat behind the free keg with the bartender (my neighbor) on ladies night with joint in hand.

Occasionally the police would come in because of a scuffle between drunk patrons. The place reeked of pot. They never did anything about it because there were enough of us that didn't agree to follow the law. There is no law or ban that is enforceable without the consent of the people. Where the tipping point is between consent of a populace and the punishment imposed by the government may be a matter for debate, but a ban without the agreement of a populace(whether citizens of a region/country or countries making up the international community) is all for show

Even in China, most of the populace agrees with the governments policies. If not, China would be a very different and most likely more violent place.

Yes, I agree you can ban things people can't get anyway. I just don't think that's a meaningful ban. Therefore, I do not believe there are any meaningful bans without the consent of some percentage of the populace.

Re:sad thing is ...

[similar_name]

Also, In a previous.. You state that a gun ban in the U.K. is more effective because they are on an island and can control things better. You also state anyone can make a gun in a machine shop. Therefore I do not believe it is the 'ease' of getting/making a gun that makes the U.K. less armed than the U.S. but rather the culture and agreement of the populace not to have them that makes them less available in the U.K.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

Needing a machine shop, and the skills to use it effectively, make it much more difficult to get your hands on a gun (esp. for dumb criminals). Also, unless you have the ability to make forged-steel rifled barrels (not a trivial thing), your homemade gun isn't going to be nearly as accurate or reliable as a manufactured one.

So, a ban on guns (if you can control importation effectively) can make it much more difficult to get one, but not impossible.

The problem in the USA with gun bans, and why they don't work, is because of the complete inability to control importation. There's no borders here, so when for instance, the city of Washington DC decides to ban guns, it's just silly, because anyone can get one in the surrounding states and just drive into the city with it. There's no border checkpoints or anything like that, just a little sign saying "now entering Washington DC". When something is legal in one place, and illegal in a neighboring place, but there's no physical border between the two, then a ban is just silly in most cases.

If there's a physical border in place, that makes it harder, and makes the black-market price go up. But it depends on how well that border is policed. For instance, with the US-Mexico border, that border isn't really policed much at all, for various political reasons (they do enough policing to claim they're doing something, but not enough to really close the border, even though it's entirely feasible). As a result, lots of contraband (drugs) are imported through it, not to mention all the human smuggling.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Belial6]

That is one of the reasons we read Slashdot. Are you really going to go look for information of moose and wolf attacks?

Re:sad thing is ...

[similar_name]

When I point out that the U.K. doesn't have a problem with guns because the people/culture don't want them you say

Needing a machine shop, and the skills to use it effectively, make it much more difficult to get your hands on a gun (esp. for dumb criminals). Also, unless you have the ability to make forged-steel rifled barrels (not a trivial thing), your homemade gun isn't going to be nearly as accurate or reliable as a manufactured one.

To that I/you say ... :)

guns are fundamentally rather simple mechanical devices; it's not that hard for someone with a machine shop to make their own.

How about prisons? Defended borders, a lack of privacy and armed guards are as well controlled as you're going to get. How well do bans on alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, knives, (I've heard but can't find a source for an actual functioning gun made from plumbing) etc. work there? If a prison can't enforce a ban (because obviously criminals don't agree to it), then how effective are bans without the consent of the populace?

One last issue I'd like to take up :)

but not enough to really close the border, even though it's entirely feasible

How do you define feasible? Possible at any cost? Do you know how many cargo vessels, trucks, etc. cross U.S. borders each day. I don't think securing the U.S. border is feasible any more than taking my shoes off at the airport is going to stop anybody.

BTW I've driven around the DFW tarmac after 9/11 because I have a friend that works there. Just make sure you don't drive behind the 747s. One plane was sitting there, door open, stairs, no one around. You should see the security employees have to go through. Duck tape on the metal detectors. No kidding. Guess how many people that clean the planes speak English as a first language. I have another friend who was dishonorably discharged from the military and served time at Leavenworth. He worked at the airport for a month before they finally insisted with no more leeway that he had to provide documentation for his background check. I've even purchased pot at DFW airport behind security. I always take a lighter with me when I fly. Not enough metal on it to set anything off. I always figured if I got caught I'd just say 'oh I forgot about that'. But I always go right onto the plane with it.

Ah yes, faith in security and the control of the government is good for followers. It doesn't mean squat for people who do whatever they want.

So I am still left with the conclusion that bans and laws work great for people who follow them, not so much for people who don't. As the number of people who follow laws and bans grows in a country it becomes harder for those that don't follow the laws, however, bans/laws are still fundamentally dependent on how many people follow and how many people don't.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

You make some good points.

How about prisons? Defended borders, a lack of privacy and armed guards are as well controlled as you're going to get. How well do bans on alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, knives, (I've heard but can't find a source for an actual functioning gun made from plumbing) etc. work there? If a prison can't enforce a ban (because obviously criminals don't agree to it), then how effective are bans without the consent of the populace?

I think the problem here isn't that the criminals don't agree to it, it's that the guards don't agree to it. The criminals are prisoners there and have no say, while the guards have guns and run the place. But obviously the contraband is getting in anyway, and that's obviously because the guards are complicit: they get paid to help smuggle things in. If there were better guards, and/or better enforcement (including harsh punishments for any guards caught smuggling), there'd be less contraband in prisons.

but not enough to really close the border, even though it's entirely feasible

How do you define feasible? Possible at any cost? Do you know how many cargo vessels, trucks, etc. cross U.S. borders each day. I don't think securing the U.S. border is feasible any more than taking my shoes off at the airport is going to stop anybody.

I was talking more about human smuggling and illegal immigrants coming over the border. Here in Arizona, it's commonplace, and it's because there's no border fence. In California, they used to have lots of border crossing, and they put up a big fence. Now there's almost no border crossing in California, and it's all moved to Arizona. As with the guards at the prisons, here the Federal Government is complicit in allowing this mass movement of people across the border, because they don't really want to stop it, for various reasons (one being they're an ultra-cheap labor pool).

There aren't a lot of illegal immigrants coming in on cargo vessels, and it's easy to check trucks for stowaways, so they simply walk across in the desert, where there's no fence and no patrols. Ranchers who live on the border see people walking across their land every day, but are powerless to do anything about it.

BTW I've driven around the DFW tarmac after 9/11 because I have a friend that works there. Just make sure you don't drive behind the 747s. One plane was sitting there, door open, stairs, no one around. You should see the security employees have to go through. Duck tape on the metal detectors. No kidding. Guess how many people that clean the planes speak English as a first language. I have another friend who was dishonorably discharged from the military and served time at Leavenworth. He worked at the airport for a month before they finally insisted with no more leeway that he had to provide documentation for his background check. I've even purchased pot at DFW airport behind security.

Again, this is all about lax or bad enforcement, and just plain corruption, just like with your prison example. When corruption has grown widespread, and the political leaders don't do anything to change that, then yes, laws don't have any weight.

As the number of people who follow laws and bans grows in a country it becomes harder for those that don't follow the laws, however, bans/laws are still fundamentally dependent on how many people follow and how many people don't.

Yes, definitely. If the leaders pass a ban on something, and vigorously enforce that ban, and their underlings (police, government workers, etc.) aren't corrupt and also work to enforce the ban instead of looking the other way, then a ban can work, depending on how easy it is to smuggle the item or make your own. If the law isn't enforced well, or the enforcers are corrupt or incompetent, then the ban won't work.

It's just like the thing with cocaine production being "illegal" in Columbia during Pablo Escobar's rule there. The government had absolutely no power to enforce their laws, so the laws were pointl

Re:sad thing is ...

[cusco]

it's perfectly legal to make heroin and cocaine in various central and south American countries . . . a bunch of uneducated people in Columbia can do it just fine in makeshift buildings in the jungle. That doesn't sound like something difficult to me, just something that requires 1) farmed coca leaves, and 2) some manpower.

Horsepuckey. The one and only country on the planet where it's legal to make cocaine is... ready for this? ... the United States. They take it out of the coca leaves that Coca Cola grows in Hawaii for pharmaceutical use. Peru is the only country besides the US that allows coca leaves to be grown, and they export it for use in Coca Cola worldwide. Its cultivation and management is tightly regulated in areas that the government controls. Most of the rest of the world doesn't bother with the foolishness of removing the trace amounts of cocaine, which is why it tastes better than the American version (that and they use sugar rather than HFCS).

The production of cocaine is actually quite a complex process, it took Sigmund Freud years to extract the pure chemical (and only months to become the world's first cocaine junkie). The producers employ very good chemical engineers to maximize production while minimizing chemical usage, since the chemicals are the principle bottleneck. Those chemicals, by the way, overwhelmingly come from the Untied States, and the campaign manager of the current US-friendly Colombian president owns a chemical company that imports more potassium permanganate into Colombia than all of Latin America combined would require for legitimate uses. The USDA and the DEA are quite aware of this, but Wall Street makes phenomenal amounts of money on laundering operations so it continues.

Re:sad thing is ...

[BetterSense]

""Go try to buy yourself enough fertilizer to blow up a building and see how successful you are""

I do, yearly, buy thousands of gallons of fertilizer, which I would assume is enough to blow up many buildings. I also know dozens of people personally that also buy fertilizer, sometimes in much larger quantities. In case you didn't know, fertilizer is used in farming, it's cheap, fungible, and whether it's tracked by the government or not is completely irrelevant because it's about as available in farm country as just about anything.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

Horsepuckey.

Which part, the part about it being legal, or difficult?

Those chemicals, by the way, overwhelmingly come from the Untied States, and the campaign manager of the current US-friendly Colombian president owns a chemical company that imports more potassium permanganate into Colombia than all of Latin America combined would require for legitimate uses. The USDA and the DEA are quite aware of this, but Wall Street makes phenomenal amounts of money on laundering operations so it continues.

Exactly, which is why it's currently legal in Colombia to make cocaine. (Hint: having a law on the books that isn't enforced doesn't make something "illegal".) But the rest of your post is very informative, thanks.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Smallpond]

Since when are handguns allowed in airports? I mean besides Law Enforcement and Air Marshals. I'm assuming your not so stupid as to argue against them carrying guns.

OK, I'll bite. Yes, there should not be air marshals carrying guns on planes. And at least one Congrssman agrees with me. Its a complete and utter waste of money.
http://duncan.house.gov/2009/06/22062009.shtml

Re:sad thing is ...

[cusco]

How about 'all of the above'. If it were easy you'd have Peruvian farmers making cocaine, instead it's only the rich cartels.

I'll make sure to tell the several thousand peasants that the Colombian army and its US-financed mercenaries massacre this year that what they're doing isn't actually illegal after all. I'm sure that will make them feel better. Or at least their survivors.

The enforcement of that 'law on the books' is strikingly brutal, at least against those who don't work for the political/financial elite. I don't think you really have a clue what the situation on the ground there is like.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

I'll make sure to tell the several thousand peasants that the Colombian army and its US-financed mercenaries massacre this year that what they're doing isn't actually illegal after all. I'm sure that will make them feel better. Or at least their survivors.

The enforcement of that 'law on the books' is strikingly brutal, at least against those who don't work for the political/financial elite. I don't think you really have a clue what the situation on the ground there is like.

Actually I don't know what it's like now. However, you can read all about Pablo Escobar on Wikipedia; he managed to be very rich and successful with his "business", despite any laws to the contrary, for decades! So obviously, the government during that time was in name only, and had no real power (at least over the part of the country he was in).

Of course, he died some years ago, so things are probably different now.

Re:sad thing is ...

[mug funky]

they'll accidentally what?

Re:sad thing is ...

[mug funky]

parent obviously never saw that bit in Live Free Or Die Hard

"you took out a chopper with a car"

"i ran out of bullets"

Re:sad thing is ...

[cusco]

Escobar was an interesting figure. Spent millions of his money building free hospitals and low rent apartment complexes, and then got elected to the legislature. Brutal bastard to his enemies and competition, but very generous to the Colombian campesinsos. He finally changed bankers so Wall Street had him taken out.

Re:sad thing is ...

[mug funky]

cuz tha po-lice always got somethin stupid ta say

Re:sad thing is ...

[mug funky]

considering how people in my town react to a few beers, i'm kinda glad i'm not dealing with armed dickheads too.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

it is, after all, a weed

It's a weed in the same sense that it's a species of grass, a piece of cookware, a girl or an insect. I.e. by nickname only.

Few people would call marijuana "a valueless plant growing wild, esp. one that grows on cultivated ground to the exclusion or injury of the desired crop. "

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfectly legal to make heroin and cocaine in various central and south American countries? Excuse me? Which countries are you refering to? I don't know any in which making heroine is "perfectly legal". And the same about cocaINE. Perhaps you are confused by the fact that is legal (but controlled) to grow a certain quantity of coca plants to get the coca leaves, which are used for other things apart of making cocaine. Specifically, chewing that leaves and making infusions based on them is part of the culture of some andean people. And, by the way, a tea with coca leaves is not very different than a tea infussion or a coffee drink (the level of concentration of the active substance in the leafs is very low, that's the reason they have to treat chemically tons of leaves to produce the white stuff...).

Re:sad thing is ...

[Neil Boekend]

There is one problem with banning high powered lasers. An EUR 16 DVD burner has one and you can built it in a mini mag-lite for convinience. While the MAFIAA would support the banning of DVD and blu-ray burners I believe this is not feasible.
Disclaimer: dunno about the range of the damn things. It may only be a few meters due to cheap optics.

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think weed is is an appropriate description. the return you get on your cultivated plants is almost directly proportional to thy amount of sun and water you can supply the plant. The benefit of the green is that it causes few, if any deaths directly to the end-user A weed becomes a crop when it can be cultivated for profit, surely?

When profit can be made by redistributing the stuff in an illegal context then it becomes dangerous, and people with guns take notice.In some parts of the USA - especially in the growing states, personal growth and consumption of cannabis is legal. It's a good scheme - it keeps the users (who are abundant) away from the for profit guys. The whole thing is much more relaxed.
Guys who go out on Friday night and smoke 8 joints are not the ones coming home angry and abusing their wife and children.

Re:sad thing is ...

[ThatMegathronDude]

There are plenty of tutorials on the web and youtube showing ordinary people exactly how to do this; even mount it into the case of a much safer-looking device.

Re:sad thing is ...

[theBuddman]

Is it too much to ask for wolves and moose with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads?

"Dazzling Pilots" sounds like a porno, btw...

Re:sad thing is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, really, slashdot seems to have jumped the shark here.

Wait, what, that's the wrong shark meme here?

Re:sad thing is ...

[Grishnakh]

Perfectly legal to make heroin and cocaine in various central and south American countries? Excuse me? Which countries are you refering to? I don't know any in which making heroine is "perfectly legal". And the same about cocaINE.

It was perfectly legal to make cocaine in Colombia during the time when Pablo Escobar was in power there. Sure, some group claiming to be the government said it was illegal, but the fact that he was able to flaunt this "law" for decades shows that that government was not the true government, as they had no ability to enforce their claim, just as I could call myself the "King" of the USA, and pass whatever laws I want, but it'd be meaningless because I have no power to enforce them.

Re:sad thing is ...

[CompMD]

"Finally, guns are fundamentally rather simple mechanical devices; it's not that hard for someone with a machine shop to make their own."

Yep, its not hard to make one that will blow your hand or face off. Having the knowledge and ability to manufacture something is irrelevant if you don't know how it needs to be made. You can build a bolt action rifle easily enough, sure, but are you going to get the chamber thickness and metals right so it doesn't go kaboom? If you're going to build a semiautomatic weapon, have fun figuring out the timing and safe pressures for operation. A safe firearm is not trivially simple to make.

Re:sad thing is ...

[ConceptJunkie]

See, if you were right then the country would have descended into irrevocable anarchy when the Great Depression hit.

Can you imagine what would happen if there were 25-30% unemployment today? Many of our cities are a short power failure from anarchy as it is.

Deep moral tradition is typically the rallying cry of a totalitarian government, not the other way around.

You mean like the Founding Fathers? Um, I don't think so.

And yet Europe which is often criticized for being very socialist and demanding less personal responsibility than America doesn't have as big a problem with underage drinking as we do.

Perhaps not. I'm sure there are cultural aspects there, but is the fact that drunk European teenagers are not getting into cars and careening into a crowd of schoolchildren part of the reason? (Not being sarcastic, genuinely asking.)

Like I said, I understand why the laws exist, even though I think they are silly.

Re:sad thing is ...

[similar_name]

See, if you were right then the country would have descended into irrevocable anarchy when the Great Depression hit.

We were certainly headed that way. Organized crime was huge. Crime across the board was up. Prohibition played a huge part of course (was alcohol part of our moral tradition?). WWII happened. I would guess we were closer to anarchy than any other time.

Can you imagine what would happen if there were 25-30% unemployment today? Many of our cities are a short power failure from anarchy as it is.

WWIII. Ok half kidding, but really unless WWIII happens it wouldn't be worse than the Great Depression.

You mean like the Founding Fathers? Um, I don't think so.

I'm not sure I follow. Can you elaborate (was the 3/5 compromise part of our moral tradition, or explicitly separating moral tradition, usually represented by the church part of that)?

Perhaps not. I'm sure there are cultural aspects there, but is the fact that drunk European teenagers are not getting into cars and careening into a crowd of schoolchildren part of the reason?

There is a chicken and the egg problem here. Do school children here get drunk and crash cars because drinking is taboo and therefore cool to an age group that expresses rebellion in almost every way possible? Or is it purely a cultural difference? If it is a cultural difference, what's at the root?

Re:sad thing is ...

[Gizzmonic]

"even though it's entirely feasible"

Really? 'It's entirely feasible' to lockdown a 2,000 mile border with a variety of terrains? I guess that's why they've spent billions on a fence that doesn't keep anyone out.

Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[Bake]

and just beat the shit out of them for being well on their way towards having those fun laser pointers banned completely?

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[icebike]

Actually the penalty for that is less than a beating.

It is charged as interfering with a flight crew and does not carry much of a penalty.

Catching the culprits is difficult, unless someone happens to see who did it, its just not likely to happen. By the time you mobilize resources they just put it in their pocket and walk away.

     

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[definate]

In Australia we ban just about anything at the drop of the hat. As such, their first reaction was to ban all laser pointers which could be used for this. It's now illegal to have them, similarly illegal as firearms, mase, battons, knives, etc.

So that was their first line of dealing with it. Make it illegal to have them, then you just need to find it in their house/car/clothes, and you can arrest them for possession.

This is just explaining how they make it easy to catch and prosecute these people. I don't agree with this, as this logic gets extrapolated quite easily. Eg, Want to get rid of bikies? Just ban motorcycle enthusiast groups. Want to stop people reading some book, playing some game, or watching some movie? Just make ratings required, and refuse to classify anything you don't like.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[mysidia]

and just beat the shit out of them for being well on their way towards having those fun laser pointers banned completely?

Even that won't stop these idiots, because they already possess the laser pointers, and they won't magically vanish from their possession just because a ban is passed.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[Anonymous Coward]

It's possible a fine (check Title 18 of the U.S.C. for details) and/or imprisonment of up to 20 years, unless a dangerous weapon was used, then imprisonment can be up to life. So, is the green laser considered a dangerous weapon?

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Not True. If the this news report is to be believed, at least one guy is getting 20 years prison time.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[bky1701]

This post should be quoted whenever someone here claims there is no slippery slope.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[hairyfeet]

you just hit the nail on the head as to why this is happening, it is because as other posters have pointed out the penalty if you get caught is a joke. Make it a felony and 10 year minimum sentence and I bet you wouldn't see anyone doing this but those who actually wish to bring down a plane. Because the average douche isn't gonna risk 10 years in PMITA prison just to be an asshole on a Saturday night. Raise the time served and make it known (with ads and billboards) what time they are looking at and I bet this crap would stop real quick without having to ban squat.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[X0563511]

There isn't.

It's more like a fucking hole in the ground, with broken glass around the edges sarlac-style.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Not much of a penalty? 20 years in Federal prison is a cakewalk for you, eh?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/20/2025702/man-faces-20-years-in-pointing.html

The penalty for just shining the laser is GREATER than causing a fatal DUI accident.

http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=47762

And I can only imagine that if the plane actually crashed, they would tack on a lot of years to that 20.

So no, the penalty is NOT a lot less than a beating.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[QuantumBeep]

I don't think this is an example of a slippery slope. Australia's ban-happy climate is more an example of evil people doing evil things for reasons that nobody actually believes.

Powerful people don't have to make convincing excuses.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[Anonymous Coward]

As such, their first reaction was to ban all laser pointers which could be used for this. It's now illegal to have them.

No, it's just illegal to have them over a certain power output without "lawful excuse". Stop spreading FUD.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[magus_melchior]

For some reason I'm inclined to attach a "response" sensor to the aircraft-- if someone tries to aim a laser at the cockpit, the response laser determines the approximate location the laser was fired from and shines a HID light on the location. Surely the aircraft can manage a few kilowatts to remind some idiots that lasers are not toys.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Knives are banned in Australia?

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[migla]

This post should be quoted whenever someone here claims there is no slippery slope.

What slippery sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooope!?

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[QuantumG]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/09/3007320.htm

"The Police Commissioner would be able to ban violent criminals from possessing knives and other prohibited weapons under proposed laws to be introduced to Parliament next week.

The legislation would also ban the sale of knives to children under 16 and restrict possession of knives near schools."

Yeah.. it's hard for sensible people to imagine anyone actually saying that... or even thinking it.

The idea that someone might use a knife to, say, cut steak and so you really can't practically ban something like that - it's so obvious that you shouldn't ever have to say it. And so maybe you might be thinking that they're talking about some sort Croc Dundee sized knife problem.. but no. They really are talking about kitchen knives. Go check out the article.. see the picture?

Welcome to Australia.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[rcw-home]

It is charged as interfering with a flight crew and does not carry much of a penalty.

The article you linked to is wrong. In Washington State, unlawful discharge of a laser in the first degree is a felony unless you're a juvenile without a prior.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[kaptink]

I 2nd your motion and couldnt agree more. These douchebags are going to make owning a laser almost impossible. Though to be fair all DVD burners have a decent sized laser and so do blue rays so an outright ban would be impossible. Green lasers though I dont think are used in any common goods but I could be wrong.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[RealGrouchy]

Knifey-spooney suddenly makes a lot more sense.

- RG>

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[sjames]

How long will it be before someone attacks a plane with a well columnated car battery powered non-laser light?

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[Anonymous Coward]

"In Australia we ban just about anything at the drop of a hat...knives."

Chriminy. We have a zero tolerance in our household. Anyone caught without a knife gets a tongue lashing and is told to go get it. We're a farm. Farm kids know how to use knives, guns, battons, rocks, spears, looming, herding, etc. Don't mess with farm kids. Really don't mess with farm kids and their dogs.

Interesting, the challenge word was "fodder". Perhaps as in "If you mess with a farm kid you'll be fodder for the compost pile."

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[cusco]

You don't know American rednecks very well, then. The 'average douche' thinks they're smarter than the cops and will never get caught (and frequently they're right). Create your new law and publicize it and I'll guarantee that the you'd have keggers at the ends of runways the next weekend.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[Lunzo]

Banned games will soon be a thing of the past in Australia. An R 18+ rating is almost certain to come in later this year. The only reason games were banned was because there wasn't an 18+ category and excessive sex or violence didn't fit the previous highest category of 15+.

The lack of the 18+ category isn't a slippery slope. We started without the category when the ratings system was extended to cover computer games. If anything freedoms are increasing with what games you play, not shrinking.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[definate]

Increasing from the already decreased situation, yes.

Unless you believe that given no government, we would have somehow still been restricted from these games?

Additionally, we have a R18+ for movies, which as you allude to is what the game rating system is based on. In fact, this is a perfect example of a slippery slope, as Michael Atkinson and the Christian Lobby used this mechanism in an attempt to block the introduction of "content" they didn't like. These people and groups have been the ones holding back the adoption of an R18+ rating.

Additionally, EVEN when an R18+ rating is adopted, games that would fit an X18+ rating will still be banned (ones with sex in them), and EVEN if they implemented an X18+ rating, they could still Refuse Classification which results in the game/movie/etc being banned.

So, my point stands.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother catching them?
Install a system on the plane which pinpoints the location, then shines a MUCH BIGGER laser down the path of the one pointing at it. That'll be the end of that guy's laser-pointing career, especially if he's using binoculars...

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter.

Tom Clancy in one of his novels, the Sum of All Fears, I think uses a small telescope and a camera flash to bring down a plane. It doesn't aim as tightly as a laser, but we talking a LOT more power.

The requirement is to be able to see a a point 150 feet away at 50 foot elevation. Down angle look of 18 degrees.

Triggering it 5 miles out is no good. Pilot would just hit the trottles and do a go around. If I were a pilot on a big plane I'd have a program on the auto pilot to climb out in a straight path on a button.

To be effective it has to be done at the point where the plane is committed to being on the ground. Moments before touchdown. Or it has to be strong enough to blind the pilots longer than than the usual divert +45 minute fuel reserve.

And it's easy to combat:

Airports are well enough lit that a 90% reflective visor would up the transmission power by a factor of 10. A visor made of the fast reaction welder's masks would do even better. If light levels are low, one pilot uses the visor while one looks at the world.

This is one of those attacks that can work once or twice against a commercial airliner.

As a murder weapon against a driver on a winding mountain road however it has a certain panache.

Re:Can somebody, pls find all the idiots involved

[Anonymous Coward]

and just beat the shit out of them for being well on their way towards having those fun laser pointers banned completely?

and just beat the shit out of them for being well on their way towards having those fun laser pointers banned completely?

Thanks to share your nice useufl informative information in this forum site

No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

People blind pilots.... using lasers.

- Citizens for Responsible Airport Laws

I'll say it.

[Kid Zero]

This is why we can't have nice things. Someone always has to be irresponsible.

Re:I'll say it.

[crusty_architect]

Yep, thats true. I live in NSW and I have actually hidden my lovely green laser pointer away.....

Re:I'll say it.

[MightyMartian]

Yes, but your wife is now complaining she can see a green glow in your scrotum.

Re:I'll say it.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not funny this is the sad truth.

More laws will also not help because the same individuals will ignore it or look for ways around it.

I don't know how but the only way we will ever be able to have something like a portable "unlimited power source" is if we change our way of thinking. So that stupid shit like trying to kill a plane full of people will not even enter ones mind.

I've had it..

[Haedrian]

...with these **********ing lasers on this **********ing plane!

Re:I've had it..

[El_Oscuro]

You must be new here. You can cuss as much as you want here:

"I've had it... with these fucking lasers on this fucking plane!"

Re:I've had it..

[squiggly12]

I believe that should be "I've had it... with these motherfucking lasers on this motherfucking plane!"

Re:I've had it..

[paul248]

You forgot "mother". Incidentally, I'm telling her you said a bad word.

Re:I've had it..

[Anonymous Coward]

Eww, for some reason I had the sudden urge to see some Rule 34 of a "motherfucking plane".

Re:I've had it..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one monstrously huge dildo. Hopefully your mother is a 200ft tall Gaia.

Re:I've had it..

[Anonymous Coward]

http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/0/0c/911truth.jpg

NO EXCEPTIONS. Also obviously NSFW.

Re:I've had it..

[countertrolling]

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the fucking plain

Re:I've had it..

[Anonymous Coward]

Phew, the whole interwebz was in danger of imploding then, but thanks to you, good citizen, we can once again wonder how she gets the glass out of 'there' if she squeezes down too hard and breaks the windshield.

Re:I've had it..

[El_Oscuro]

Damn - I wish I had mod points for informative - oh wait I do... Damn the motherfucking ./ moderator rules!

Re:I've had it..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, i hate dotSlash too. those jerks.

Re:I've had it..

[The_mad_linguist]

"I've had it... with these monkey-fighting lasers on this monday-to-friday plane!"

FTFY

Re:I've had it..

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here. You can cuss as much as you want here:

Just because you can doesn't mean you must. Or is the rule now that we must eliminate all vestigates of polite, let a lone civil, society?

Re:I've had it..

[QuantumBeep]

Cussing is fun.

Also, when you're throwing out f****** a***isks, you've already left polite discourse behind.

Re:I've had it..

[prichardson]

Given the quote and the number of asterisks, I believe "motherfucking" is what he intended.

Re:I've had it..

[Scarletdown]

Oooooohhhhh. You said the fuck word.

Re:I've had it..

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not worry sir, it has been attended to, please return to your feature currently in progress.

Re:I've had it..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "frickin'", not "fucking". Get it right! You even spelled "shark" wrong. What's wrong with people these days?

Laser-line Rejection Filter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lasers are made in a great many colors, but couldn't they notch-filter the predominant linewidths (esp. those attenuated least in the atmosphere)?

Re:Laser-line Rejection Filter?

[natehoy]

Through the cockpit windscreen? Lasers commonly come in red and green. You filter out those two colors, even a specific shade of each, and it's gonna be a lot harder to see a lot of things, like approach lighting, etc.

Laser Filters?

[DragonDru]

Can't we just put laser filters on the cockpit windows (or have the pilots wear laser safety glasses)? Maybe we can't filter *every* color laser (that may block too much normal light), but we could filter the green ones which the article mentions as the more troublesome type.

Re:Laser Filters?

[Haedrian]

Unfortunatly the human eye sees green as the brightest colour. If you're putting filters on the pilot's eyes, he'll be seeing less at night, or in foggy conditions or something similar.

How about a camera to outside instead?

Re:Laser Filters?

[Smirker]

Ah yes, let's filter light from getting into the cockpit. A-grade idea there!

Re:Laser Filters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Laser pointers emit a very specific wavelength of green. You could in theory filter a narrow range and let the rest of the green go through.

Re:Laser Filters?

[dgatwood]

How about a camera to outside instead?

You think a pilot is easy to blind.... Though I suppose they could always fall back on the windows if someone did.

Re:Laser Filters?

[Khyber]

They *TRY* to emit a specific wavelength, but after time and use, that wavelength shifts, and that specific filter becomes useless.

Re:Laser Filters?

[icebike]

Either that or have LDC video screens in the cocpit as backup.

But cockpits are complex enough already and retro fit would be extremely expensive.

Automated Landing Systems might make more sense, since these would be also be useful in other situations. Fully automated landings are permitted in Europe, but I don't think they are in the US.

In most cases no serious damage is done, and the worst case todate has been the need for a go around. That may not last forever.

Re:Laser Filters?

[paul248]

If all you need is a backup set of optics, just make the pilots wear an eyepatch.

Re:Laser Filters?

[Anonymous Coward]

AC to preserve moderation (think it will work, not certain, apologies if not.)

Brilliant! Simply Brilliant! I couldn't find that in the moderation list though. Where is the "funny enough to bring a tear to my eye" moderation?

Re:Laser Filters?

[mysidia]

Unfortunatly the human eye sees green as the brightest colour. If you're putting filters on the pilot's eyes, he'll be seeing less at night, or in foggy conditions or something similar.

In foggy conditions, the pilot does not need to wear this protection, as fog attenuates laser light.

Re:Laser Filters?

[natehoy]

Arr, we already do!

Oh, wait, matey, ye said "pilot." It's pronounced with an ARRRR!

Re:Laser Filters?

[Rand310]

I recall something about this with respect to pilots who might at some point encounter a nuclear blast. Part of the training included wearing an eye patch such that in the event of a nuclear detonation the pilot would not be completely blinded.

Re:Laser Filters?

[dgatwood]

I'm having a Gilbert and Sullivan moment here.

Re:Laser Filters?

[Rick17JJ]

On Star Trek they always used a view screen and other displays, instead of windows. Presumably, that would protect their eyes during their fictional space battles. With the power of the science fiction weapons shown on TV, I would assume that injury to eyes would occur if they were just looking through ordinary windows.

With an aircraft that had windows, perhaps they could somehow selectively block lasers, without totally blocking the view. Perhaps, special goggles could be designed that would quickly detect the color of the laser used and then almost instantly have the goggles block just that color. If it is a color that the pilot would normally need to be able to see during a landing, perhaps the goggles could projected an image containing the essential missing visual information directly into the pilots eyes or onto a small LCD display.

Another alternative might be for the goggles to somehow automatically detect the direction that the laser light is coming from, and then just block the light of that color coming just from that direction. I do not know what physics, chemistry and electronics might be involved in somehow doing that.

Yet another possibility might be for the goggles to suddenly block everything to the sides, but still allow the pilot to see forwards towards the gauges and displays. If perhaps the pilot could not land safely that way, I would assume that he could abort the landing and safely fly away, flying on instruments.

Re:Laser Filters?

[Laser Dan]

Unfortunatly the human eye sees green as the brightest colour. If you're putting filters on the pilot's eyes, he'll be seeing less at night, or in foggy conditions or something similar.

Actually since it is a laser, the wavelength band is very narrow and easy to block without significantly affecting the pilot's vision (even for green objects). An interference filter blocking 532nm (the wavelength of green laser pointers) would be very effective, but expensive to cover the entire cockpit windows.

Perhaps either pilot or copilot should be required to wear laser safety glasses blocking 532nm on landing approach (and other common wavelengths if needed). That would only cost US$200 per plane and would completely get rid of the problem.

Re:Laser Filters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Act I -

Oh, better far to live and die
Under the cowardly anonymous name I try,
Than play a sanctimonious part,
With an anonymous face and a cowards heart.
Away to the cheating world go you,
Where logged-in posters with karma are well-to-do;
But I'll be true to the song I sing,
And live and die a coward anonymous.

For I am a coward anonymous!
And it is, it is a pitiful thing
To be a coward anonymous!

For I am a coward anonymous!

Act II -

I am the Captain of a jet airliner
amongst pilots you'll find none flying finer
I know the flight paths from Baltimore to Lebanon
and I can have someone help you with your baggage that is carry-on

He'll have someone help you with your baggage that is carry-on!
He'll have someone help you with your baggage that is carry-on!
He'll have someone help you with your baggage that is carry-on!

My airliner is a marvel e-lec-tron-i-cal
Our meals are made with the finest steak or only vegetables
Our in-flight magazines teeming with a lot of news
Including many cheerful facts about the inter-tubes!

Including many cheerful facts about the inter-tubes!
Including many cheerful facts about the inter-tubes!
Including many cheerful facts about the inter-tubes!

-IARCF

Re:Laser Filters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that's not an unreasonable idea.

And for a backup, a second set of cameras that stay covered unless the primary cameras become disabled. The only problem would be with displays- weight and clarity for operations in visual conditions.

Re:Laser Filters?

[fifirebel]

They *TRY* to emit a specific wavelength, but after time and use, that wavelength shifts, and that specific filter becomes useless.

I was about to call bullshit on this one, but you are in fact right.

Diode Laser Frequency Stabilisation, courtesy of UTK & Google.

Re:Laser Filters?

[dgatwood]

Poor trolling one,
though thou hast surely strayed,
take heart of grace,
thy keys retrace,
poor trolling one!

Poor trolling one,
if such poor taste as thine
can help one find
humor in kind,
then post it, pay no mind!

Re:Laser Filters?

[Khyber]

Lasers and my current field of profession (optoelectronic horticulture) are very closely related. Many of the same issues present with laser diodes are present in diodes used for horticulture.

I don't think we'll be able to stabilize it using simpler methods until we change the direct composition of diodes themselves. Graphene might be a potential given how strong and durable it is.

Re:Laser Filters?

[Anonymous Coward]

The wavelength might shift for diode lasers, but does it shift for diode-pumped solid-state lasers? The wavelength of a green laser (532 nm) is half of 1064 nm, which is the wavelength from a particular atomic transition in the neodymium ion. I don't think that properties of atoms change with "time and use".

So, the biggest threat to airline travel ....

[Anonymous Coward]

So, the biggest threat to airline travel is prankster laser pointer wielding yocals and not some loon putting explosives on a plane or hijacking it?!?

Remember that when you're taking your shoes off, having your personal items picked through and groped by the TSA.

Re:So, the biggest threat to airline travel ....

[warrigal]

I doubt the problem is really pranksters.
There has been a campaign for decades to close or at least move Sydney airport. It sits in an inner-city suburb that predates the airport.
Every election sees both federal and state governments promising to do something about it.
Spend some time in a suburb like Rockdale and you'll have to get used to large aircraft passing at chimney height all day and most of the night. At other airports with similar problems aircraft have been found with bullet holes in them. So I think the laser crew are being most restrained.

Re:So, the biggest threat to airline travel ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying that this IS a threat does not eliminate or reduce other threads. As a matter of fact, the release does not say that this particular matter is the biggest one to aircraft. It merely describes what is a serious safety issue.

Would you rather they only concentrate on one problem at a time for some reason?

Re:So, the biggest threat to airline travel ....

[flyingfsck]

The airport was there first. Now the idiots who built/bought houses around it complain about the noise? Get serious.

Re:So, the biggest threat to airline travel ....

[Anonymous Coward]

The airport pre-dates everyone living there - and it is a typical fucking Sydney attitude that they HAVE to be the point of entry for most flights into Australia "Ra Ra Sydney We Are The Best!!!! Look At Us!!!!! We Made Oprah Come To US" but that you can't get your fucking airport sorted. If you Sydneysiders weren't such a bunch of narcissistic pricks, this shit would have been sorted out.

Re:So, the biggest threat to airline travel ....

[Tablizer]

having your personal items picked through and groped by the TSA.

There's something really odd, and potentially disturbing, about the way that's worded.

Re:So, the biggest threat to airline travel ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Just they typical ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME attitude of people that live in Sydney mate. 90% of flight delays are caused by fucking Sydney. It is a pity that the Brisbane floods didn't happen to Sydney - it would be like flushing the toilet of hipster douchbags who think that they are the center of the fucking universe.

Re:So, the biggest threat to airline travel ....

[R3d M3rcury]

I can't speak for Sidney airport, not knowing the situation. That said, it can be somewhat understandable.

I live next to a railroad track. Usually twice a week, about 10:00AM, a train comes past carrying supplies to the local Home Depot and will make a lot of noise--like you can't hear someone close-by talking. It's twice a week--always on a weekday, lasts maybe 30 seconds, and it's not a huge deal.

However, if the trains suddenly started coming by every hour between 6:00AM and midnight, I think I'd be more than a little upset.

Again, I don't know the Sidney situation. But as airports expand outward, the house you bought 15 years ago that was far enough away from the airport that the noise level wasn't too bad is suddenly unsellable and unlivable because the airport became bigger or planes became noisier or some such thing.

Re:So, the biggest threat to airline travel ....

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get this, even though it's a common enough phenomena near old airports. Who in their right mind would move in - or indeed build new houses - with an airport for neighbour, and then start whining about it? It's not exactly a secret that the airport was there to begin with, and it's not a secret that the associated activity causes noise.

And I'll never understand the sense of entitlement some are showing if they think resorting to terrorism - which exactly what pointing lasers at aircraft in order to get the airport moved is - is going to do any good. These assholes should get flogged on first offence, if they can prove stupidity or lack of comprehension of the consequences of their actions. In any other case, they should be treated as the terrorists they are.

Accidental?

[SilverHatHacker]

Green lasers are often used for stargazing, since you can use the visible beam to point out specific stars. I wonder how many of these incidents are accidental hits either by idiots^W people who don't know the difference between a plane and a shooting star or who are honestly pointing out constellations while a plane just happens to fly through? Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity and all that.

Re:Accidental?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's right... People accidentally aimed lasers into the pupils of pilots when the planes were far enough out that the pointer-holder couldn't tell the difference between a plane and a star.

Learn some geometry and fucking get real.

Re:Accidental?

[Nemyst]

You don't go near airports to watch the stars.

Re:Accidental?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but what exactly do shapes have to do with this?

Re:Accidental?

[Suddenly_Dead]

I assume you're not stargazing right beside an airport, so the planes are going to be at a pretty good altitude. How are you going to hit the cockpit?

Re:Accidental?

[Wyatt Earp]

Why would you be stargazing in an area with some of the worst light pollution? Airports are pretty goddamned lit up you know.

Re:Accidental?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or anywhere in Los Angeles, for that matter.

Re:Accidental?

[PhrostyMcByte]

I own a 100mw green laser pointer -- the rare times I end up showing it to people, all of them aim it out into the distance to hit some target -- usually a tree or phone pole. I quickly noticed about 1/4th of them would aim it at a helicopter or airplane. It's not malice -- it's stupidity. Now after telling people the dangers of pointing it at living things or reflective objects, I have to tell them not to point it at flying shit too.

The chances of someone having a steady enough hand to hit a plane are slim. Being able to keep it on the plane for any significant amount of time to blind someone is even slimmer. The beam is around 4-8mm wide at 3 miles distance on an expensive laser pointer. I don't know if it would have enough power at that distance to blind or even annoy. But hey -- there is plenty of shit on the ground to point at, so I don't really care to test it.

Re:Accidental?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I dont go near airports to watch stars so tell the pilots to not come near me while I am watching stars :-)
I dont bother them they should not bother me...

Re:Accidental?

[BitterOak]

You don't go near airports to watch the stars.

You do if you live near an airport.

Re:Accidental?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't let people touch my 15 mW green pointer; mostly because of what you've said, but partially even because I don't much care to be exposed to a blinding green light when my eyes are totally night adapted.

After an astronomy club meet at my University, I was driving away as some people on the other side of the campus were playing with a pretty bright green laser. They decided to shine it at a tree right beside me (again, across the campus). Very bright, very distracting, and it even left a noticeable afterimage afterward. It might not blind you, but it will take your attention off the task you're trying to do.

Re:Accidental?

[Tablizer]

Green lasers are often used for stargazing, since you can use the visible beam to point out specific stars. I wonder how many of these incidents are accidental hits either by...

"and here you can see the Orion Nebula and next to it what looks like a passenger jet spinning out of control..."

Re:Accidental?

[Tablizer]

If enough amateur astronomers do it, the probability of an accidental hit goes up.

Re:Accidental?

[Tablizer]

You don't go near airports to watch the stars.

Yes you do:

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/arts/photos/2009/08/17/beatles-cp-250-7152353.jpg

Re:Accidental?

[camperdave]

Bounce it off an Iridium satellite?

Re:Accidental?

[Dr Damage I]

He's referring to the angles required to get a laser beam into an aircraft cockpit. Stargazers aren't going to hit a cockpit by accident unless they're looking at stars close to the horizon; and airports tend to be significant sources of light pollution so if you want to gaze at stars on the horizon, you're much better off locating yourself someplace where there wont be an airport between you and your actual target.

Re:Accidental?

[pruss]

Normal stargazing procedure is to turn off green lasers when there are planes visible, and not to use them when one is near an airport. In any case, mistaking a plane for a meteor is rather unlikely unless one has never before seen a meteor, and the amateur astronomers with green lasers tend to be at least somewhat experienced--that's why they're the ones showing things to others. A somewhat more likely confusion is between a plane and a satellite, which is why it's a good idea, just in case, not to point the laser right at the satellite, but to sweep it in a decently sized circle around it.

Re:Accidental?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was unfortunately one of those idiots. My friend had one a long time ago and I had no clue of it's real power. I accidentally hit something reflective and ended the fun for everyone :(.

Re:Accidental?

[robot256]

Please don't let untrained people use a 100mw laser for any reason. It may not be as dangerous as a firearm, but that makes an accident more likely because people are less careful with it.

Re:Accidental?

[thegarbz]

You don't at very many airports, and definitely this includes Sydney airport. You're lucky to see the moon through the light pollution. Context is everything.

Re:Accidental?

[pantherace]

Actually I think it is possible.

I was out stargazing/meteor watching with friends last year near a local observatory, and there was a really bright light to the southwest that we couldn't think of what it was, some were thinking had to be (as it was bright, moving a *very* small amount, and looked almost exactly like Venus does), but some didn't think could be Venus (as it should have set). Going on however long, probably close to 20 minutes, it starts moving more, and eventually we are able to see what it is: an aircraft with it's landing lights on, eventually passing nearly overhead. For about 10 minutes, we didn't know what it was. (And then we started suspecting an aircraft as the apparent brightness and movements were greater.) Oh, and If I recall correctly, we had 2 people with AE degrees with us, and several people who work with aircraft for their jobs (actually probably half the group). If we didn't figure it out that quickly, I highly doubt anyone with less experience of aircraft would have, before they pointed it out.

If any of us had been using green pointers, I highly suspect someone would have pointed it out that way, as opposed to pointing it out verbally and with fingers. The only remaining questions were how far away it was, if we'd have had the power to be visible at the distance (at 5mW, unless the beam was really good, I kind of doubt it), and if we'd hit the cabin. Granted, they were not on final or anything (they did seem to be a little lower than expected). That experience has suggested to me that it is fairly likely that at least some of them are likely to be accidents.

I can't find the lower limit of human vision, so I can't tell, but if we assume say 400mph, It would have been about 40 miles away before we decided it was an airplane. Which would put even the blue spyder lasers in the harmless (it gets there before 2 miles (with blink reflex)), but visible category. A 5mW laser might not even be visible depending on divergence. (5mW is the limit of what get called laser _pointers_ are supposed to be restricted to. Finished products of more than 5mW aren't supposed to be called laser pointers, but everyone seems to ignore that.)

Re:Accidental?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live 5 miles from an airport. Your argument again?

Re:Accidental?

[dangitman]

Green lasers are often used for stargazing...

If by "stargazing" you mean Kenny Loggins concerts at the local planetarium.

Re:Accidental?

[dangitman]

I quickly noticed about 1/4th of them

One quartereth?

Re:Accidental?

[marcansoft]

A dark adapted pupil is 9mm in diameter, so an 8mm beam at 3 miles is just as dangerous as a 1mm beam at 10 centimeters. 100mW is well past the retinal damage threshold. Laser beams don't lose power with distance (in clear weather), they just expand. Until they expand to a diameter wider than a human pupil (such that the amount of power that can enter the eye at once actually drops), they're equally dangerous.

However, your 8mm figure is way off as far as I can tell. A typical laser pointer has a divergence of 1mRad or so. That's one meter at one kilometer (tan(x radians) is basically x for low values of x, so you can just say 1mRad = 0.001 width per distance). If I didn't mess up my math, that's about 8 microwatts entering the eye at one kilometer (from a 100mW pointer). Definitely visible, possibly annoying, but completely safe.

Re:Accidental?

[multipartmixed]

You've given this a surprising amount of thought for somebody who has ignored the most basic aspect of the situation: the problem reports occur during take-offs and landings. This means that the aircraft are close to the ground, and as such are unlikely to be mistaken for stars.

Additionally, when aircraft are high enough that they CAN be mistaken for stars, they fly roughly parallel to earth's curvature, oriented in a way that prevents the passengers from falling out of their seats (actually, jumbo-jet airframes can't really safely barrel-roll anyhow). This means that lasers would bounce harmlessly off the underside, unless the astronomers happened to be at a similar altitude and looking toward the horizon. Which means again that the aircraft would not resemble stars... Well, unless, they were up really high AND really far away from the airplane. But it would have to be REALLY high, even higher than the plane, due to the curvature of the earth.

So, I call unlikely-gans for your scenario. As in "it would more likely that the remains of a 1975 Ford Pinto fell from orbit and blinded the pilot with the flash from the re-entry heat gas tank explosion"

Re:Accidental?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I wonder how many of these incidents are accidental hits either by idiots^W people who don't know the difference between a plane and a shooting star or who are honestly pointing out constellations while a plane just happens to fly through?"

Oh, probably all of them.
You fucking idiot.
Absolutely unbelievable.
Talk about taking the most UNLIKELY cause and trying to make out that it's the MOST likely. You fucking cretin.

Laser pointers are used by malicious scumbags to ruin the lives of others.
Wait until some 10 year old prick blinds you, FOR LIFE, with one of them, and then come back and tell us how wonderful they are. They should ALL be banned because they can, and WILL, be used to blind people, and animals. Meanwhile, the fucked up scum who do this will never be caught and will continue making the world a horrible place to live. Thanks to douchebags like you, who can't even face reality.

Re:Accidental?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe as in my case owning my home for more than 37 years they built an airport 30 miles away from my home and unfortunately my home is on the final approach. As an amateur astronomer I'm pretty much out of luck for any observing.

Re:Accidental?

[the_other_chewey]

actually, jumbo-jet airframes can't really safely barrel-roll anyhow

Yes they can. Done correctly, a barrel roll is a 1g maneuver.
It has been done with a Boeing 707

Technically and mechanically, any modern airliner up to a Boeing 747
or an Airbus A380 is capable of doing a barrel roll - however, you
would have to disable multiple envelope protection levels in the
flight computer to be allowed to do it.

Re:Accidental?

[imsabbel]

8mm at 3 miles is impossible with a diode laser. Coherence length and beam divergence simply do not work that way.

A spot size of 4-8 meter, on the other hand, would be typical for a normal, single refocused laser pointer.

Re:Accidental?

[multipartmixed]

I know it's been done with jumbo jets -- but is the airframe rated for the manoeuvre? I guess that's your trying to say be saying it only needs 1G.

That said, I think my original point still stands - it's highly unlikely these lasers are being shone in the eyes of pilots flying upside-down.

Re:Accidental?

[pantherace]

The peculiar part of this particular thing was that it had it's landing lights on, and appeared to be low. We were about 8-10 miles from the nearest airport, and the aircraft didn't seem to be going into any of the landing patterns I've seen before. (Disclaimer: I'm not a pilot, I just hang out with some.) The plane looked a bit like a 737 or A320, but twin engine airliners with similar ratios are hard to tell apart. Specifically, for a long time it had motion, but not much compared to your average airliner, it appeared bright, and low on the horizon. Oh and we weren't the only ones observing the meteor shower (There was a whole state park filled with people doing that). While I'd make sure that we didn't have any lasers used in an unsafe manner, I don't count on the general public to do that. While they wouldn't have blinded the pilots (permanently), they very well could have caused problems with night vision.

(Also, my calculations of safety were off, but only by a density of 2, so call even the spyder is safe by 3 miles, not 2. That's at least for the blink reflex to protect your eyes. Also, the plane would have been a bit further out. Time mistakes likely be less common if we used decimal time.)

Either way, non-blinding, but potentially distracting for a pilot, even if it were only for a short bit, with a more powerful laser (3B or 4, in either system) which are increasingly coming in laser pointer form factor. Mind you I'd like to have some of them, but I have kids around sometimes. Kids do stupid things with regard to lasers. Having seen how even a relatively unfocused (Class 4 equivalent) beams can cut through things, I'm thinking that class 4 should not be in 'laser pointer' style enclosures. Available to the general public, yes. However, not in a form which most people associate with harmless Class 3A (or 3R).

Only pilots who are pussies

[Dunbal]

Lasers pointed at cockpits can temporarily blind pilots

      Please cite examples of pilots who have temporarily been "blinded" by a laser.

While it's a nuisance to see someone shine a laser beam around your cockpit, the plane's speed, the shakiness of human hands, and the distance from the person pointing it makes it unlikely that the laser beam will find its way directly into one of the two pupils a pilot may have for more than a fraction of a second.

But America has given up on things like trigonometry, math and science, in favor of bullshit like this. The current situation is 1) Pilot and copilot see red dot jump momentarily around the cockpit and decide to report the incident, 2) Pilot and copilot agree to overstate the harm done to them in an effort to persuade authorities that this is a "serious problem" 3) The media gets hold of the story and distorts it further, screaming for the death penalty for anyone who owns a laser pointer and lives within 10 miles of an airport. But no one is willing to do the math.

Yeah it's irresponsible to point lasers at airplanes. Call me if ever there's a serious incident that puts an aircraft in danger.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[MavEtJu]

This issue doesn't need to be that it reaches the pilot's eye(s), when the beam reaches the window and it "scatters" the beam giving it a bright area through which you can't see.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Dunbal]

OK I'll accept your point. But you would need some pretty expensive equipment to keep the beam steady, correct for the speed and altitude change of the aircraft if it's on glideslope, and make sure your beam is steady over the spot that exactly lines up between the pilot's eyes and the runway.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

Add to it possible commercial interest in having additional equipment installed on all planes by law.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[marcello_dl]

The bigger the area, the quadratically lower the brightness, am I right?

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

The threat is very real my friend for I have invented just such a machine!

It targets and fires green lasers at incoming aircraft with deadly precision. Since the units charge via solar power I have been able to deploy hundreds of thousands of these units across the country side. I demand you bow down before your new master and I will allow your puny aircraft to fly once more!

Incidentally, coming this summer I will release sharks with freakin laser beams to haunt those troubling international flights.

-Bill Jobs The Mad Scientist

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

Brightness is not related to the beam diameter, oddly enough. Intensity is though.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[v1]

While it's a nuisance to see someone shine a laser beam around your cockpit, the plane's speed, the shakiness of human hands, and the distance from the person pointing it makes it unlikely that the laser beam will find its way directly into one of the two pupils a pilot may have for more than a fraction of a second.

Moreso than that. The average consumer laser's columnating lens is much lower quality than scientific grade. My pointers have some serious expansion and scatter. At about a block the green dot that used to be 1/8" wide and sharply defined at a few feet away is about the size of a beachball. (the central dot, the scatter will be well over dumpster size)

So there is quite a bit of spread for most laser pointers. I don't think it poses anywhere near the usual safety issue of flat out getting permanent blind spots. The issue I think is the "dazzle" effect. Basically that when light like that hits you, even if spread out quite a bit, it temporarily messes with your vision, blinds you in that direction for a short period of time. And they are really good at catching your attention for some reason, you tend to look straight at them when they first come into your view off to the side even, before you can consciously stop yourself. And that puts a temporary blind spot right in your central vision.

Also, people keep talking about the distance issue trying to get a little green dot into a window. It doesn't work that way. These dots are very large at distance. I'd say about 1/2 mile or less is optimal distance, and you're going to be lighting up the entire front of the plane with your pointer. Given it will be hard to keep it right there, but it's not going to be impossible by any stretch.

At that distance, are you're going to sweep the nose of the plane several times, not being able to hold your aim exactly on target. If a pilot gets his attention caught by one sweep, and is looking in that direction by the time the second sweep glances the plane, it could create a minor hazard for them. The only way this is going to be serious is if the laser is coming from straight ahead of them, where they have to keep their eyes pointed to watch their approach. Lasers coming in from the sides can be largely ignored. And if they're coming in from the front, they're at the airport near the runway and the airport security should be able to deal with that.

But all of that being said, I think it's people over-reactng. It's about as dangerous as standing on the side of the highway and throwing a snowball at a car as it drives past. Some people will freak out and dial 911 and others will just flip you off. The danger is about the same. So are we going to ban snowballs too? It's just sensationalism.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not talking about the itty bitty red laser pointers used for presentations and entertaining cats. They referenced green lasers which have considerably more power and distance to them. Here is an example of a 200mw high power green laser during the night. These are easily available to anyone over the internet and even go as high as 1000 mw of output. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLyxiOVIC0s

This can blind, and it can easily reach miles away. If the laser hits something and scatters, it brightly lights up an entire room. A pilot flying the redeye won't be prepared for a powerful flash of light like that. He would've been sitting in a dark, dimly light cockpit for hours. Of course he'd be blinded by it.

Perhaps you should check facts, yes?

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[bertoelcon]

-Bill Jobs The Mad Scientist

Steve, try to pick a better name for your crazy and just as evil alter ego.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Dunbal]

You realize that 1000mw is 1 watt, right?

Now put it a couple miles away. Now if you want a properly collimated laser that is capable of say, burning cardboard at close range, you're going to be paying upwards of $700 for it. Somehow I think people who can afford a $700 laser have better things to do than shine it at aircraft. You are the one who should do a little fact checking.

Or maybe you think that this is a new "terroristic" attack... then take comfort in the fact that we'll all be dead by the end of next year.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because for a normal light, the energy is emitted over a 2d surface of which you only see one point. With a laser, you can still put all the energy into a small spot from a great difference. At any given point, it's less, but all 5mW or whatever still hits the windshield and bounces around.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[sonamchauhan]

OK I'll accept your point. But you would need some pretty expensive equipment to keep the beam steady, correct for the speed and altitude change of the aircraft if it's on glideslope, and make sure your beam is steady over the spot that exactly lines up between the pilot's eyes and the runway.

This equipment is called "hands", and pretty much everyone's got a pair.

Or is it your point that the "blinding" only happens for a few seconds, what could go wrong in that time?

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs died this afternoon.

R.I.P.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[arth1]

And they are really good at catching your attention for some reason, you tend to look straight at them when they first come into your view off to the side even, before you can consciously stop yourself. And that puts a temporary blind spot right in your central vision.

Simply put, no.
There's no way you can cover the cockpit of a flying airplane for the time it takes to move your eyeball to the source of the light.

Cops find it difficult enough to point them at cars at a much shorter distance and speed.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[MrKaos]

While it's a nuisance to see someone shine a laser beam around your cockpit, the plane's speed, the shakiness of human hands, and the distance from the person pointing it makes it unlikely that the laser beam will find its way directly into one of the two pupils a pilot may have for more than a fraction of a second.

All they need to do is to use the roof of a vehicle or a hand rail to get the device steady, I do the same thing when I'm using a camera. There exists some very simple techniques you can use with your hand to sight a target at a distance and how long does it take to have a laser pointed into your eyes to blind you even for a matter of seconds. It's not a matter of math, it's a simple technique used in rescue situations to get the attention of an aircraft.

I acknowledge media beat up etc etc, but before you call this bullshit and say these guys are pussies why don't you get someone to shine a laser across your eyes and let us all know how long you were blinded for. Personally, I don't want anyone to fuck with the pilots who are flying the aircraft I'm on and I fly out of that airport quite frequently. So please do the experiment, record how much harm it did and how long it took for your eyesight to recover. You're are man enough to have a laser pointed into your eyes, right?

Yeah it's irresponsible to point lasers at airplanes. Call me if ever there's a serious incident that puts an aircraft in danger.

Even if there never is a serious situation the inconvenience from the inevitable security clampdown from this is just as bad. I think that's serious enough.

Like any aircraft accident it will be a combination of factors that overload the pilots abilities to operate the aircraft safely, won't it. Perhaps a tired flight crew with some piece of faulty equipment gets distracted at a critical moment. Even if it just delayed the aircraft I certainly don't think it's a risk you would be prepared to take with the flight crew of your aircraft.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[ToasterMonkey]

OK I'll accept your point. But you would need some pretty expensive equipment to keep the beam steady,

Like.. the cheapest rifle scope at Walmart?

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[quantumphaze]

While it's a nuisance to see someone shine a laser beam around your cockpit, the plane's speed, the shakiness of human hands, and the distance from the person pointing it makes it unlikely that the laser beam will find its way directly into one of the two pupils a pilot may have for more than a fraction of a second.

A fraction of a second is enough to do permanent damage if the laser in question is powerful enough.

I have used a high density 4mW HeNe laser in an optics lab and given safety warnings that if this were to be shone into your eye that the time it takes you to instinctively blink would be too late. This same laser was pointed to a black cardboard backdrop when there was no equipment in the way which wasn't powerful enough to burn.

Compare this to videos and instructions on how to use a DVD burner laser as a weapon that can start fires, pop balloons and burn your skin. Remember the cheap 2W laser from Wickedlasers featured here last year. If some dickhead gets his hands on one of these and thinks it a good idea to point it at a plane and just happens to be unlucky enough to hit the pilots pupil (with these thousands of incidents a year and coordinated attacks it's bound to eventually happen) you're looking at assault charges at the least.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[MadnessASAP]

Doesn't need to be a steady beam, with a powerful laser it just takes a fraction of a second to dazzle a pilot and force him to abort a landing. I work at an airport and have flown in the cockpit enough times to tell you that landings are sketchy enough without some jackass on the ground trying to distract you. Fortunately the things are run in a modern cockpit makes switching command and aborting landing a fairly simple task, nevertheless it's just a matter of time before a pilot gets a laser in the eye twitches his hand 50' off the ground and noses the bastard right into the dirt.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs died this afternoon.

If only that were true, what a wonderful world this would be.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[DCFusor]

Instrument Flight Rules. They have the ability to bring the plane almost to a perfect landing while sleeping, and they regularly fly in conditions where they might as well not be in the cockpit anyway. There's some pretty sweet avionics gear on big planes now. I'd hate to be hit in a little plane, but the ones in question often have to land in circumstance where the pilot is effectively blind anyway...

Not that it wouldn't be annoying as heck to have to do that all the time. And this kind of speaks to the inadequate geekiness of those doing it. A nice CO2 laser would shatter or hole the windscreen (at least on a car, maybe planes have better ones)...Much Mo Bettah if you want to mess up a plane. 10-20 watts output will do it at a mile.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[spaceyhackerlady]

It may not blind a pilot, but being startled when you're on approach is Not A Good Thing. The plane is close to the ground and not going very fast. It's right on the edge of falling out of the sky. In a sense, it is falling out of the sky...

...laura, who did circuits this afternoon

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an article from a few month ago about the dangers of green lasers. I have one for public stargazing events, but am very carefull about where I point it.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1005818?query=TOC&&&&

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[thegarbz]

The distance actually makes it far easier. These aren't precise scientific instruments, and the majority of laser pointers that can be bought for a price affordable by the normal person actually produces a slightly diverging beam. Sure it looks 2mm across on your desk however from 1km down the road the beam is several meters in diameter. This isn't a red dot. It will light the pilot's cockpit up like a fire and will likely make it impossible to look out the window.

Now if someone is pointing a 5mW red laser at some person 1km away I'd say hand the pilot a hankie and play him a violin, but 125mW green lasers could be bought almost anywhere, more powerful lasers exist too. I know someone who brought a Class 3B laser back from Thailand and started irresponsibly point it around without any knowledge that the blink reflex of a person can not protect them against blindness. Point that at a plane 1km away and while you may not cause permanent damage to the pilot's eyes but you definitely impede the vision of the pilot during the most difficult portion of his trip.

Aircraft are being put in danger, but you clearly want to wait for a bodycount before you start worrying. I'm not one for banning something, but if someone is actually found doing this the should have their eyes removed.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUpmLbkzyEI
I can see how this would be blinding especially if your eyes were currently acclimated to low light

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

This happened to me once while driving a car on a city street. I'm pretty sure it was a group of school kids in the next lane.

If you haven't had a laser pointed at your eye all I can say is it hurts. Sharp pain that left me hurting and squinting for a while.

But after the incident was over I was left with the same question -- how the hell did they manage to get me? I guess I'll never know for sure. But it occurred to me that they can intentionally shake and sweep the pointer side to side and draw lines or arcs with the laser. It could be that all you need is a split second contact with the retina and that's enough.

Then I wondered why they don't make windshields or sunglasses that filter out red and green laser wavelengths?

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[nashv]

Actually , it looks pretty dangerous in this news report.The blinding effect in the night sky is pretty serious. I presume you've never performed a night landing?

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[guanxi]

Please cite examples of pilots who have temporarily been "blinded" by a laser.

A very good point, and I agree. What has increased is reports of laser attacks, not laser attacks themselves. How does the pilot know that he source of whatever he perceives is a laser? How many attacks have been confirmed?

It's hard to believe many people have the resources, motivation, and aim to pull it off. When is the last time you saw a laser illuminating anything anywhere? A cloud? A bird? A tall building?

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

The refraction of the laser against the windshield makes it impossible to see out the window. The beam does not need to hit tje eye directly.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

10-20 years ago it was UFO's, now it's laser pointers. I guess anyone can get into flight school these days. Oh wait, the 9/11 incident showed, that indeed, ANYONE can!!!

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Renraku]

Here you go.

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1999_h/99-02-11daly.htm

A lot of pilots have heard about this and are scared. Do you know what's scarier than a laser dot bouncing around your cabin full of shiny reflective things that could possibly blind you if it gets in your eyes? A laser dot that you can't see. This is a major issue with green and blue lasers because they might be putting out a lot of non-visible energy. All it takes is an instant to blind you permanently. Some green lasers can do it.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[freightdog]

How about me? I'm a commercial pilot at a 135 operator. I fly a 'large' aircraft (over 12500lbs) and operate single pilot. I have been lased from several miles away with a green laser and the effect was unnerving and painful. Yes, painful. When your pupils are dilated at night, it's much, much easier for lasers to deliver 'blinding' amounts of energy to your retina- that being enough to make it impossible to correctly interpret instrument indications or visual cues from outside the aircraft. I do not know the reason it caused the pain, but I assume it's that laser light delivers a lot more energy to the retina due to it's coherent nature. All I know is that my left eye hurt for hours afterward.

The real issue is not actual 'blinding' but the disorientation and distraction. Laser light hitting a cockpit tends to cause a stroboscopic effect- pits and surface imperfections in the window refract the light and bounce it all over the cockpit. The first sweep lit up the entire cockpit and the left window looked like a strobe was right outside. I instinctively glanced left and that's when the laser swept over the cockpit a second time, hitting my left eye before I could blink. My right eye was not hit directly, but I had to turn the cockpit lighting up to full to be able to read the AI and the HSI. The aircraft was not equipped with an autopilot, so simply sitting back and letting the plane maintain heading and altitude was not an option. I was lased in cruise flight, at about 10,000 feet, and estimate that the lasing came from five to seven miles away, so a slant range of at least six miles is not unreasonable. If this had happened at low altitude, on approach, the safety margins would have been greatly reduced. Having a second crewmember does no good if both are disoriented by refracted light.

Let me head you off at the pass before you trot out autoland or some imaginary BS. One, not all airports have the equipment. Two, not all planes have the equipment. Three, if the approach is not briefed, loaded, and being flown, you can't just switch modes and sit back. In visual conditions (when most lasing events occur), a lot of approaches are flown by hand. To even engage the autopilot on a precision approach would likely require a mode select change on the autopilot, which is an unusual task- it's not something you have a flow and checklist for, so it takes some extra consideration.

What if this happens at a critical time, say just before landing? At low altitude, the range is minimized, atmospheric interference is negligible, aiming is easier, and pilots are looking outside the cockpit. At 1000 feet and 135 knots, a standard 3 degree glideslope requires a descent rate of 715fpm. That's under a second and a half to impact. If you've got a TOGA mode, great. If not, you're gonna be busy. Did you ever wonder why aviation focuses on worst-case scenarios so much? It's because the consequences of failure are pretty damn high. You can't just pull over and pop the hood or call AAA.

So you can go and do all the trig you want, but until you've experienced the event and have to consider the risks and your obligations to maintaining saftey of flight, don't talk. Your math doesn't alter the physiological responses of the human body. Your math doesn't counteract spatial disorientation. I may only have boxes in the back, but I fly over some pretty densely packed urban areas, so there's a lot more at risk than my ass and your Cheesecurls of the Month package.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

Balls. Complete and utter nonsense.

In this country (the UK) and Ireland there have been several incidents of temporary blindness, including one police pilot. Fortunately none were in my company's crews, as I fly single-pilot and don't have an autopilot capable of auto-land. If it does happen it is like being dazzled by the sun, where you get multiple spots on the retina and can't see well for a bit. Considering the sight needed to land safely this is not good.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[michelcolman]

It's not just a small dot. Laser beams are not perfectly focused, they do get wider at a distance. At such a distance, the small dot becomes a disc than can easily blind someone if the laser is powerful enough. I fly for Air France, and these incidents are regularly reported around the Paris airports as well. Several colleagues have reported being temporarily blinded, and one recently even had to take medical leave because of a black spot in his eyesight that only went away after a week. These are not the little red pointers you use on slide shows, they're more powerful than that.

What's your phone number?

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[v1]

There are lots of people posting about what the pilots are experiencing with almost none of them admitting to having any experience with even being on the receiving end of a laser. Well I have, many times. There's a reason the military is using them at checkpoints. If someone is lasing you, it's very hard to see them or anything right next to them. That's the only truth to this issue. And it only applies if the laser is originating where you are trying to look. So unless they are right inline from the runway, there's very little hazard at all.

It's like a headlight on a dark road. Do you really mind driving past someone that't stopped at an intersection with their headlights on bright? Side-on doesn't cause a problem. Now put them in the oncoming lane, and it's a whole different story. Same thing here.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Graff]

Somehow I think people who can afford a $700 laser have better things to do than shine it at aircraft.

That's a silly idea, that someone with more money is less likely to do something idiotic. There are plenty of examples throughout history of the idle rich messing around with people just for fun, just like there are plenty of examples of poor people doing the same.

I don't think you can draw any reasonable conclusions about the likelihood of someone with more disposable income being less irresponsible than someone with less, at least not without a ton of data to back up those claims.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Graff]

I totally agree with everything you have said here, the lasers are obviously dangerous to pilots. I just had a small nit to pick with one detail:

At 1000 feet and 135 knots, a standard 3 degree glideslope requires a descent rate of 715fpm. That's under a second and a half to impact.

Did you mean to say minute and a half? It looked that way to me since it was 1000 feet and descending at at 715 feet per minute. Even with the unit being minute as opposed to second it's still a pretty short time to deal with being dazzled and partially blinded.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[sjames]

4) Turns out the red dot was an indicator light that due to persistence of vision appeared to be a laser light moving around.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[freightdog]

You are correct, I mistyped. It's something like 83 seconds, a little under a minute and a half. That's assuming that the correct pitch attitude is maintained and the rate of descent does not increase.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[ArsenneLupin]

But you would need some pretty expensive equipment to keep the beam steady, correct for the speed and altitude change of the aircraft if it's on glideslope, and make sure your beam is steady over the spot that exactly lines up between the pilot's eyes and the runway.

These laser pointer are in common use by hobby astronomers (useful for pointing at stars)... and hobby astronomers just happen to already own the piece of "expensive equipment" needed to aim them correctly. The only additional thing needed is a convenient mounting bracket to attach the pointer to the "aiming equipment" (easy if you have access to a machine shop), and the software to automatically follow the plane on its predictable path (I'm sure you could reflash the pointing device with DD-WRT or equivalent, and write a script).

Also fits nicely in the trunk of a large car without needing too much disassembly, if you need to pack up in a hurry...

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[bojan99]

The lasers aren't red, they're most likely green or blue. Output powers are not a measly 5mW, but upwards of 1W. http://www.wickedlasers.com/lasers/Spyder_III_Pro_Arctic_Series-96-37.html Burns tape and other things. Range of 6.7km +, definitely causes blindness at short ranges, and flash blindness at long distances. Output power can be 200-300 mW for the same affect, which can be bought for 100$. When the beam hits the window it scatters and illuminates everything, try it in your car. If your ok with your next pilot, not seeing anything during landing, your not very smart.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

We had idiots aiming laser pointers at cars where I lived last year.....blinded might be too strong a word, but it was hell annoying.

They did it to me after I drove past, so I was unable to run them over claiming I was 'blinded'

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[antdude]

Any photographs/photos. and/or video clips of this? Just curious. :)

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[rusl]

The current situation is 1) Pilot and copilot see red dot jump momentarily around the cockpit and decide to report the incident, 2) Pilot and copilot agree to overstate the harm done to them in an effort to persuade authorities that this is a "serious problem" 3) The media gets hold of the story and distorts it further, screaming for the death penalty for anyone who owns a laser pointer and lives within 10 miles of an airport. But no one is willing to do the math.

Yeah it's irresponsible to point lasers at airplanes. Call me if ever there's a serious incident that puts an aircraft in danger.

I agree. How does one get "blinded" by a single point light source.

People say you will get blinded looking at the sun or an eclipse. I've done it. If I look for a long time (many seconds) then I get a temporary image of the eclipse stuck on my retina then I can look away and see the image of the eclipse on the ground or something. I don't feel blinded. The effect is very short lived. I'm pretty sure the sun is brighter than most lasers that could be used in this setting. And the sun is a lot larger (not a single point) than lasers would be. When I work on welding I occassionally flash myself at very close range. Of course one avoids this but mistakes happen now and then. It is an impediment. But I can still weld right afterwards if I need to and usually do.

Unless the laser is located on the landing strip then why can't the pilot just not look at it? ! If I am not looking directly in the direction of the laser then how am I blinded!?

It may be stupid and potentially dangerous to point lasers at pilots but I'd wager that the actual threat from this possibility is pretty miniscule. But it does make such a sensational fearmongering story like monsters under the bed WITH LASERS!

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[rusl]

This issue doesn't need to be that it reaches the pilot's eye(s), when the beam reaches the window and it "scatters" the beam giving it a bright area through which you can't see.

I don't accept that. Landing strip lights are pretty bright and meant to be usable even if other visability (ie some fog) is poor. Planes also use radar and non visual tools for landing. If glass is clean is usually lets light pass through. That is what it's for. I could imagine conditions where a large spotlight would do what you describe but it seems like it would have to be pretty ideal conditions for the mischief making laser terrorist to succeed.

Re:Only pilots who are pussies

[rusl]

The bigger the area, the quadratically lower the brightness, am I right?

But you also have to multiply the irrational paranoia: LASER TERRORISM!

Banned: the new illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

The "ban on lasers" is a confusing one.

The last decade the Australian Government has been using this "ban" word like a fad on everything. Its not illegal, its not prohibited... its BANNED.

I'm still trying to figure out what they mean, maybe someone cant have one near an airport or any teenager cant have one but a professor using one for presentation or someone pointing out star constellations is allowed to?

It just seems like a grey area so they make a ban instead of outright illegal.

I went out and purchased a green laser from the USA just before this ban got set in place simply as a middle finger to the Aussie Government. Going out into the middle of nowhere hours from any city and having a light show on a clear night making out you have a lightsaber is cool. Also you can do some great photography with them such as reflecting off water.

Pointing at planes is stupid, do some work and catch the idiots instead of being lazy and making everyone not have a choice.

I've been illuminated...

[trygstad]

...by a laser while piloting a helicopter and it's scary as hell. I don't have a solution but I sure wish I did. There are some sick puppies out there that this continues to go on. These people should be arrested and prosecuted but I recognize that it's difficult to impossible to catch these idiots.

Re:I've been illuminated...

[shovas]

Many people, including myself, don't understand what you're seeing. The small size of lasers, the distance between the points, shakiness of human hands, etc., How is it even possible for more than a split second? Could you be confusing it with something else?

Re:I've been illuminated...

[jo_ham]

It spreads a fair amount over long ranges, and it scatters considerably when it hits the cockpit glass and when your eyes are acclimatised to the dark it is relatively very bright. It's not so much that it gets directly into your eyes, more that it changes the conditions in the cockpit at a time when you are concentrating and things that are out of the ordinary are immediately tagged by the brain as potential issues that you might have to deal with

Re:I've been illuminated...

[Simon80]

The laser spreads out with distance. By the time it hits the helicopter it's wider than just a tiny dot. Also, green lasers can set stuff on fire up close (any slashdot reader should have seen articles about this), so of course it's dangerous to take that in the eye even far away. Finally, here are some links to show that even freehand, people can aim successfully: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0ttcyIJPm4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTGynLQz-s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUpmLbkzyEI

Re:I've been illuminated...

[DCFusor]

Heck, if you're in a heli, you're one of the few people who could catch those guys and really pinpoint where they are -- and follow them as they run too. Radio doesn't let you patch to phone or someone who can call cops with GPS locations?

Re:I've been illuminated...

[Battle_Ratt]

In Calgary they actually did. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2010/08/17/calgary-hawc-laser-pointer-beam-arrest.html

Re:I've been illuminated...

[R3d M3rcury]

I don't have a solution but I sure wish I did.

Laser guided missiles?

Re:I've been illuminated...

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution of course is to develop glasses which filter out the common laser frequencies. Lasers are one-wavelength light sources. A very narrow filter should do.

Re:I've been illuminated...

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know it was a laser?

Re:I've been illuminated...

[Anonymous Coward]

...by a laser while piloting a helicopter and it's scary as hell. I don't have a solution but I sure wish I did.

It's called a pair of polarized glasses. You can pick them up for under $10 at any local gas station, although I'd recommend you go to an eye doctor and get a really nice pair if you wear them often.

Re:I've been illuminated...

[evilviper]

How about a simple coating on the glass? there would be some added cost, but I would much prefer a simple technological solution to an endless Sisyphean law enforcement task.

Re:I've been illuminated...

[ArsenneLupin]

It's called a pair of polarized glasses.

Would they still work if the prankster rotated their laser by 90 degrees?

Re:I've been illuminated...

[trygstad]

Can't safely wear them in a cockpit, and certainly not at night

Re:I've been illuminated...

[trygstad]

It certainly can damage your vision even at fairly long ranges, and helicopters fly considerably lower than most aircraft.

Re:I've been illuminated...

[antdude]

Any photographs/photos. and/or video clips of this?

Re:I've been illuminated...

[trygstad]

First, I'm not going to fly TOWARD someone who is illuminating me with a laser; I hope you can see that would be very foolish. Second, the general populace tends to get rather upset when you fly a helicopter low enough to chase people on foot, especially one as large as I flew. Third, people don't fly helicopters for fun--it costs too much to fly them--and this means that when we're flying, we're on a mission and can't just go haring off after boneheads with lasers. In my case it was a Navy helicopter.

Re:I've been illuminated...

[rusl]

You still have to be looking in the direction of the light for it to impact your vision. With a laser there is less chance of you looking in that exact direction than with normal light that comes at wider angles.

Re:I've been illuminated...

[jo_ham]

Here's an example from a police helicopter. The guy doing it is clearly not holding it very still, but you can see the effects. When it hits the more "scarred" surface of the front cockpit glass it scatters even more than the video seen here, where it goes in through the observer's side door.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUpmLbkzyEI

Re:I've been illuminated...

[jo_ham]

It's not just being hit directly in the eye though, especially during night flying when your vision is acclimatised to the dark. When the laser hits the glass and scatters it lights up the interior of the cockpit it makes it hard to see the instruments, and if it does happen to catch you in the eye it can blind you for a few seconds.

You can see this effect with winter sunlight in the morning in your car - even if you have the sun off to the side, your vision of things *inside* the car can be drastically reduced, even though it's not harming your eyes. (and I know, sunlight isn't a laser, the sun is more powerful than a 5mW handheld laser, etc, but the effect it analogous on a smaller scale, especially when your eyes are acclimatised to the dark).

Re:I've been illuminated...

[antdude]

Thanks. Good perspective of that laser. Ack.

What the what?

[LoudMusic]

How are people able to accurately point a laser at a dude's eyeball in an aircraft moving over 100 mph from a relevant angle of attack through the aircraft's windshield from an unrestricted vantage point? From BELOW the aircraft?

This sounds like a crap story to me.

Re:What the what?

[Peeteriz]

The same way as monkeys can pound out sentences on typewriters - sit and smoke weed for a couple of hours, 'painting' every plane that's landing, and you're bound to succeed in blinding a couple of them.

Re:What the what?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unless the window has been replaced within about the last 20 minutes, it will likely have enough tiny scratches and little bits of crud and whatnot on it that just hitting the window will cause a large portion of it to light up a delightful bright green. Still not trivial; but you don't need to hit the eyeball, just the window.

That said, if people are that freaked out about it, they could just have the co-pilot wear a $30 pair of laser-safety glasses on approach, and take over if the pilot gets dazzled.

Longer term, it would be relatively inexpensive(in the grand scheme of passenger aircraft avionics) to equip the pilots with multiple screens showing feeds from cameras scattered strategically around the outside of the aircraft. Good luck blinding 6-8 camera lenses scattered around a 747's body without equipment so costly that you could save money by using a black-market Stinger(or equivalent) instead...

Re:What the what?

[mysidia]

equip the pilots with multiple screens showing feeds from cameras scattered strategically around the outside of the aircraft.

I'm in favor of equipping commercial aircraft with tactical air to ground missiles that lock on to the source of green laser light and detonate, covering the perpetrator with hot pink paint and simultaneously dispatching local authorities to arrest the moron.

Re:What the what?

[ikkonoishi]

Video of a laser pointer hitting a cockpit.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7990013.stm

It makes a huge spot of bright light on the windshield.

Says the guy with no flying experience...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's a lot more complicated than that.

Near my international airport (KSEA for those interested) is a public park on the north end of the airport, from there it is a ridiculously easy shoot into the cockpit with a laser at around 3 miles when aircraft are landing to the north (runways 34). At that range most green lasers beams are actually fairly wide, but still plenty bright, especially to eyes that have spent the last 6 hours acclimated to almost total darkness (pilots routinely turn the lights down at night) Since you bring up geometry, I submit to you that the angle from ground to cockpit at that distance is probably in the 10 degree range. And consider that these aircraft are landing from the south, facing north. The pilot is required to maintain contact with the runway lighting system at all times, including the lights leading up to the runway. If they can see lights 1/2 mile ahead of them, I think they can see the lights 3 miles ahead of them. If you'd like i'll get out my FAR/AIM (FAA rule bible) and quote you the regs.

Now, lets talk the pussies argument. Would you want YOUR pilot to be even 1/4 blinded when operating at 175mph and 300 feet off the ground? Safety says you go around and let your eyes reacclimate. It's not that they could NEVER land the plane, but that given the other stressors already in place, why would you risk it? Remember we are in the plane with you, and we have just as much interest in going home to our families as you do.

My credentials: Commerial rated, Multi-engine and Single-engine, with an unrestricted IFR rating.

Posting AC due to lack of account, long time reader.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[koolfy]

This is very very insightful and deserves to be read. I'll quote it to be sure people see it. (I don't have mod points)

Actually, it's a lot more complicated than that.

Near my international airport (KSEA for those interested) is a public park on the north end of the airport, from there it is a ridiculously easy shoot into the cockpit with a laser at around 3 miles when aircraft are landing to the north (runways 34). At that range most green lasers beams are actually fairly wide, but still plenty bright, especially to eyes that have spent the last 6 hours acclimated to almost total darkness (pilots routinely turn the lights down at night) Since you bring up geometry, I submit to you that the angle from ground to cockpit at that distance is probably in the 10 degree range. And consider that these aircraft are landing from the south, facing north. The pilot is required to maintain contact with the runway lighting system at all times, including the lights leading up to the runway. If they can see lights 1/2 mile ahead of them, I think they can see the lights 3 miles ahead of them. If you'd like i'll get out my FAR/AIM (FAA rule bible) and quote you the regs.

Now, lets talk the pussies argument. Would you want YOUR pilot to be even 1/4 blinded when operating at 175mph and 300 feet off the ground? Safety says you go around and let your eyes reacclimate. It's not that they could NEVER land the plane, but that given the other stressors already in place, why would you risk it? Remember we are in the plane with you, and we have just as much interest in going home to our families as you do.

My credentials: Commerial rated, Multi-engine and Single-engine, with an unrestricted IFR rating.

Posting AC due to lack of account, long time reader.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[Dunbal]

No, I would rather live in a world where people behaved responsibly. Sadly that is impossible.

I accept your argument, and I accept that night vision can be diminished by even a brief flash of light at night. I'm too lazy to calculate the energy density of a "wide", poorly collimated laser beam at 3 miles, however considering that these beams are usually powered by 5/1000ths of a watt or so, it's not a lot of energy to start with (the sun puts out around 24 times much energy per square centimeter). It's far less than 5 mW if you're not getting the whole "beam". I suspect that the impact on night vision is not much greater than looking at the instruments (which also emit light in a dark cockpit, and have to be checked quite often as you know).

Rather than destroying vision I would claim that the biggest problem is surprise, and the chance of momentarily over-reacting or losing situational awareness because of that surprise. I agree that a pilot is quite busy during take off and landing, especially in weather and traffic, and anything unexpected is not good at all.

What I hate, however, is an argument brought to the table for the wrong reasons. I hate to think of laser pointers being controlled or outlawed because of a handful of idiots since they do have their uses besides entertaining pets. The blurb said that there are well over 2000 incidents per year. I would point out that despite this, there has not been a single accident. So I do not condone taking people who point lasers at planes and burning them at the stake or, as is likely, charging them with PAX # counts of attempted murder, to be served consecutively.

  I still challenge that lost eyesight is the least of a pilot's worries, but this is the argument that is put forward. The pussies comment was a generalization based upon my opinion of a particular event in the news, because a flight crew came across as especially whiny and were threatening to sue the whole world because of this.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[TubeSteak]

... however considering that these beams are usually powered by 5/1000ths of a watt or so, it's not a lot of energy to start with (the sun puts out around 24 times much energy per square centimeter). It's far less than 5 mW if you're not getting the whole "beam".

Your argument is like saying that a 600,000 volt stun gun is only powered by one 9 volt battery.
It's true, but irrelevant when you're lying on the ground twitching.

I suspect that the impact on night vision is not much greater than looking at the instruments (which also emit light in a dark cockpit, and have to be checked quite often as you know).

And now you're just making stuff up, but if you're confident in your assesment,
I'd encourage you to test the effects of a green laser to the eyes from 3 miles away.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[jshackney]

Just some clarifications... (and no, I'm not the AC)

...I submit to you that the angle from the ground to cockpit at that distance is probably in the 10 degree range.

I'm just being nit-picky. I looked up KSEA's approaches. The glidepath (depending on the runway) varies from 2.75 degrees to 3.00 degrees. Not quite 10 degrees.

Many laser incidents, according to ASRS, have occured during the landing phase when the aircraft is "inside" the Final Approach Fix--generally less than five nautical miles from the runway threshold. This is typically a point where the aircraft is approximately 1,500 feet above ground traveling at approximately 130 to 150 knots. Y'all are smart, you can figure out the MPH. It's only a matter of moments before ground contact if directional control is compromised.

...maintain contact with the runway lighting system...

Well, sort of. 14 CFR 91.175 gives the instrument-rated pilot a laundry list of options, but to over-simplify it, if you can't see something that defines the runway, you can't land there.

Remember we are in the plane with you, and we have just as much interest in going home to our families as you do.

I've used that same response when asked, "Where are the parachutes?" by our most skittish infrequent fliers.

Oh, I didn't read them all, but I didn't notice a report of a red laser in the cockpit. The majority of them are reported as being green.

Now, on a personal note, I have never seen a laser cross my cockpit. However, I have been struck by lightning twice (each time during the day) and it is incredibly blinding if you happen to be looking straight at the discharge. I realize this is apples and oranges in terms of candlepower, but the point is that it is surprising, and it will "reset" your night vision if the intensity is enough to adjust the iris. I could easily see the flying pilot being forced to transfer control of the aircraft to the non-flying pilot--a potentially reportable incident to the NTSB.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[Dunbal]

Your argument is like saying that a 600,000 volt stun gun is only powered by one 9 volt battery.

      Not really. While you can up the volts at the expense of the amps, in a stun gun the total amount of power you deliver is actually quite small, which is why it doesn't kill you.

      The watt however is a measure of power. When you receive a watt you cannot receive more than a watt. In fact you receive much less because some of that energy is absorbed by the air between you and the source, and some is reflected away by the cockpit glass. And then take into account the much wider beam. This is basic physics.

I'd encourage you to test the effects of a green laser to the eyes from 3 miles away.

OK, but I need to borrow your eyes.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[ErikZ]

Now, lets talk the pussies argument. Would you want YOUR pilot to be even 1/4 blinded when operating at 175mph and 300 feet off the ground?

I don't mind. It's time we switched over to pure autopilot anyway.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[jhol13]

looking at the instruments

Go look at the 5mW laser, please.
Then compare that to 5W lamp.

Actually, why don't you go and try staring at 100mW laser, perhaps then you'll comprehend the difference of watt and laser.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[joe_frisch]

Add to this that a significant fraction of aircraft accidents are due to distraction. Even if the laser doesn't blind the pilot, it might distract him from some other critical action close to the ground.

A couple of months ago I was flying my bonanza into San Jose - some idiot was shining a green laser at all the incoming airliners. (I was probably too small for him to notice).

I've never seen the point: 99.9999% of the time when you point a laser an an airplane, nothing happens. .00001% of the time 300 people die. Doesn't seem like a very fun game.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[drsmithy]

I don't mind. It's time we switched over to pure autopilot anyway.

I have no doubt in my mind a computer can fly a plane better than a human 99% of the time.

I'd still prefer a human in control for that 1% of the time saving a few hundred lives might mean theoretically exceeding the capability of the airframe.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[freightdog]

The watt however is a measure of power. ... This is basic physics.

Great. How many watts, exactly, does it take to bind all the rhodopsin in your rods to arrestin?

When talking pilots, physiology is what's important, not physics. Calculate all you want, but it's the effect on the perceptions of a living organism that are really important, not raw data about energy transfer.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, experiment with a low-power, red laser pointer with the "wide line" grating installed - the thing that would be used to underline text during a lecture rather than just put a red dot on it. Then get a friend to sweep that line across your face, with your eyes open, at night from about 100 feet away. The power is spread throughout the width of the beam so you are only experiencing a very small fraction entering your eyes. You may be surprised by the effect on your night vision even though you were exposed to only a small fraction of the power for a few milliseconds.

Extrapolate to what would happen if you were flying a plane and someone deliberately tried to light up your cockpit, and your eyes, with a more powerful and more deliberately aimed lazer.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[juhaz]

however considering that these beams are usually powered by 5/1000ths of a watt or so

Well, why don't we start by considering this to be a ridiculous assertion? There's absolutely no reason to assume that anyone trying to blind a pilot on purpose would be using puny off-the-shelf 5mW laser, when there are devices up to at least 1W trivially available.

Re:Says the guy with no flying experience...

[Colin Douglas Howell]

I'm too lazy to calculate the energy density of a "wide", poorly collimated laser beam at 3 miles, however considering that these beams are usually powered by 5/1000ths of a watt or so, it's not a lot of energy to start with (the sun puts out around 24 times much energy per square centimeter).

The devices which people are concerned about are much more powerful, 0.1 watts and up. These are not legal for use as laser pointers in many countries, but they can easily be purchased online and can also be built from components used in consumer electronics.

The Wikipedia article on lasers and aviation safety may be of interest. Judging by the content there, this has clearly become a real concern for aviation people.

Ban them anyway.

[toby]

They're an annoyance everywhere they're used.

Re:Ban them anyway.

[arth1]

I put up property markers a while ago. The laser pointer was quite useful, compared to the old method of having to hack my way through brushes with brass string.

Then there's my telescope. Trying to describe just what you're looking at is quite tough, and most amateur telescopes aren't calibrated nor leveled, so you can't just give Cartesian coordinates either.

Oh, and let's not forget woodworking. Trying to find the one spot that's raised a fraction of a millimeter on a plane piece of wood is far from easy -- without a laser, that is.

No, the legitimate uses are legio. Certainly far more plentiful than the legitimate uses for owning a Heckler&Koch assault rifle or a car capable of doing 240 mph.

Damn sharks...

[macraig]

... don't they have anything better to do, like eat some surfers? And just who gave them the lasers in the first place? Damn Pentagon!

OK i'll say it..

[mygodineedausername]

Ok i'll say it are they mounted to sharks?

Should be on mythbusters

[shovas]

I have to agree. I've heard reports of this for a long time but how is this even possible? Scattering on the windows? They're pointed upwards as well from what I've seen of big planes. Maybe they're talking about small aircraft. I just can't see 1500 incidences a year, though. Maybe the pilots are confusing the phenomena with something else.

This should be on an episode of mythbusters.

Re:Should be on mythbusters

[khallow]

I just can't see 1500 incidences a year, though.

If I shine a laser every night at a plane, then I created 365 or so incidents. If I do so at 4 different airports each night, then I created almost 1500 right there.

Re:Should be on mythbusters

[arth1]

And if pilots who don't like seeing laser pointers report them whenever they see them, no matter how far away and unrelated to their flight they are, you quickly get a high number.
Remember that one of the main legitimate uses for laser pointers is stargazing, and it wouldn't surprise me if a very large part of the reported incidents are not aimed at airplane cockpits at all, but were simply seen by pilots.

Re:Should be on mythbusters

[khallow]

Remember that one of the main legitimate uses for laser pointers is stargazing, and it wouldn't surprise me if a very large part of the reported incidents are not aimed at airplane cockpits at all, but were simply seen by pilots.

If they're seen by pilots, they're aimed at the plane, intentionally or not. There isn't that much spread in a laser pointer. And my guess is that most pilots see lasers when they're landing, simply because that's when they're most likely to be looking out the window. So it is possible that someone could be stargazing or whatever and accidentally shine a laser on a plane that is landing (or for which a pilot happens to be looking out the window in the right direction at the same time the plane passes through the beam), but it isn't that likely, unless you have a star party, using laser pointers, along the landing path for the airport. The frequency of these events seem more compatible with miscreants shining laser pointers at landing planes than planes accidentally passing through a star pointer beam.

Re:Should be on mythbusters

[arth1]

If they're seen by pilots, they're aimed at the plane, intentionally or not.

Um, no. The beam reflects off water vapour and other impurities in the air, so you can see it even though it's not pointed at you. If it didn't, it it would be useless for stargazing.

Re:Should be on mythbusters

[khallow]

Um, no. The beam reflects off water vapour and other impurities in the air, so you can see it even though it's not pointed at you. If it didn't, it it would be useless for stargazing.

Recall with the stargazing example that you are looking along the beam path. You're not going to see the laser unless you're very close to the beam path. Second, the FAA claims that these are lasers that were pointed at the airplane not merely seen in the distance.

Re:Should be on mythbusters

[arth1]

You've actually never seen laser beams at night?

Re:Should be on mythbusters

[khallow]

Yes, that is correct. Merely showing a couple of pictures of an unusually high powered beam (it's not a star pointer so don't waste my time with it) and a picture along the beam (which I've already allowed) doesn't change that.

Re:Should be on mythbusters

[dangitman]

This should be on an episode of mythbusters.

Yeah, they'll be sure to set the record straight, use strict scientific procedures, and not muddy the waters at all.

Re:Should be on mythbusters

[arth1]

80 mW isn't unusually high powered for a stargazing aid.
This one, for example, is 100-200 mW.

Re:Should be on mythbusters

[cusco]

Baloney. I walk my dogs late at night, and I can see lasers being used at the college across the valley. Somehow I rather doubt that they're pointing directly at me yet I can see the red dot and if it's humid a beam. These are not scientific-quality devices, they scatter all over.

Re:Should be on mythbusters

[Anonymous Coward]

You should get a Netflix subscription or something so you have something to do. ;)

Transposed Conditionals

[Okian Warrior]

This is an example of the "fallacy of the transposed conditional" and how people use it to justify legislation that does nothing to address the problem.

See if you can assign a likelihood (high or low) to the following:

Probability that someone has a laser, given that they shined one at an airplane,
Probability that someone shines one at an airplane, given that they have a laser.

The likelihood that anyone having a laser will use it against an airplane is so astronomically small that legislation will have no appreciable effect, but will inconvenience many people.

The logic is precisely backwards, but it sounds like a justification.

Someone should introduce the legislators down under to Bayes Theorem.

Re:Transposed Conditionals

[Angst Badger]

If I had any mod points right now, you'd definitely get a +1 Informative. One of the big problems with people is that most of them think that they think logically, but almost none of them actually do. No one is born thinking logically. It's an acquired skill and not a trivial one, yet we don't teach it in the schools, save for bits and pieces that are incidental to other subjects.

Re:Transposed Conditionals

[DCFusor]

Too late, they did gun control (near elimination for all law abiding people) on the same wacky thought processes, and saw home invasions (with things like baseball bats) go way up as a result of the criminals knowing they'd never have to face armed resistance. Only the law abiding were inconvenienced. But you know, the legislators saw a problem and "did something" so they sleep fine -- and have armed guards, unlike the sheeple who put them in office.

Too bad if you're 70 yrs old and can't simply beat up a young, 300 lb thug with what they leave you with to defend yourself.

Re:Transposed Conditionals

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a job for MythBusters!

Re:Transposed Conditionals

[T Murphy]

To be fair, I assume the ratio (people pointing lasers at cockpits):(people legitimately inconvenienced by a ban on lasers) is a far better than (people pointing lasers at cockpits):(laser pointer owners). I still doubt such a ban is a good idea, but if you're going to point out problems with the pro/con considerations, for argument's sake it helps to be thorough.

To be specific:
Pros: (small number of laser pointer idiots)*(moderate cost of each incident)
Cons: (large number of people with laser pointers for no reason)*(very small inconvenience) + (somewhat small number of people with good reason (practical or safe and recreational) to have laser pointers)*(moderate cost per person)

Re:Transposed Conditionals

[misexistentialist]

Since most of what they do is demagoguery, legislators only take an interest in logic so that they can construct fallacious arguments.

Re:Transposed Conditionals

[Anonymous Coward]

The likelihood that anyone having a laser will use it against an airplane is so astronomically small that legislation will have no appreciable effect, but will inconvenience many people.

What the hell kind of math is that?

If you prevent 90% of people from doing something, and 1% of those people are, say, murderers, you still stop 1 murderer for every 99 non-murderers you stop. But you still stop 90% of those murderers, regardless of how small the fraction of murderers are. Transposed conditionals have nothing to do with it.

This ban may be pointless and stupid and it may not have any appreciable effect, and banning something may keep it out of the hands of law-abiding citizens but not keep it out of the hands of criminals -- but you can't reason about how appreciable the effect will be by handwaving entirely irrelevant statistics in either direction (in this case, the irrelevant statistic is the fraction of people who abuse the lasers).

Re:Transposed Conditionals

[DarthVain]

I usually like to call that the "Look like your doing something about the problem when all your really doing is making it a pain in the ass for everybody else."

Very common in government. Makes you look like your competent and doing something about something you care very little about. Makes everyone Else's life just a little bit harder.

When what they could do is, you know, use the laws/policies/etc... that already currently exist to punish the individual people actually involved.

It is usually accompanied with the "Oh god think of the children! We must make sure this never is able to happen again!". Which incidentally, is stupid.

Example: Someone cheats a procurement policy and gives the contract to a buddy. Appropriate response: Fire Someone. Actual Response: Make procurement process so convoluted and arcane that no one can get anything done. Problem Solved!

It's still a big problem in Sydney

[crusty_architect]

This still seems to be happening a lot around Sydney. I noticed that it made it into YSSY ATIS last Thursday night. Approach: EXP INDEPENDENT VISUAL APCH Runway: 34L AND R FOR ARRS AND DEPS Operational Info: PARALLEL RWY OPS IN PROG. INDEPENDENT DEPARTURES IN PROG WIND: 030/15, CROSSWIND MAX 15 KNOTS UNAUTHORISED LASER ACTIVITY REPORTED 07NM ON FINAL Cloud: CAVOK - (Ceiling and Visibility OK) Temperature: 29 QNH: 1010

payback's a bitch

[confused one]

put a kW class laser on the planes and fire back

Banned in Australia

[tumutbound]

It's not just NSW that have banned laser pointers, a laser pointer over 1mw is a banned import into Australia. If you import one, it will be seized by Customs. To legally import one, you must get a firearms license issued by the police in your state of residence. It's against the law in most states (Queensland seem to be the exception) to be in possession of a laser pointer, of any colour, in a public place.

Re:Banned in Australia

[NewtonsLaw]

Wow, Australia must be one of the most (over) regulated nations on the planet these days.

It seems that as soon as *anyone* mis-uses something, they have a kneejerk reaction that results in bans.

Semi-automatic rifles, handguns, laser-pointers, bottled water in universities, plastic bags, etc, etc. The list is already long and looks as if it's going to be endless.

Come on Aussies -- stand up and fight for your rights!

Re:Banned in Australia

[MrQuacker]

What about infrared lasers then? Even a low power one can kill a retina in milliseconds.

If people wanted to down planes that is what they'd use, not green lasers. You cant see the IR beam, and it causes way more damage than any colored laser.

Re:Banned in Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

you forgot the internet, they are trying to ban that there too.

http://gizmodo.com/5064310/australia-to-build-great-firewall-down-under

Re:Banned in Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

You're absolutely right a civil war is needed but unfortunately wont happen despite Australians disagreeing with all the governments stupidity.

Re:Banned in Australia

[camperdave]

The lasers are not causing damage. They are a visual distraction, like an oncoming car with the high beams on.

Re:Banned in Australia

[MavEtJu]

In Australia everything is either compulsory or illegal.

Re:Banned in Australia

[warrigal]

In Australia everything is either compulsory or illegal.

Except whining, apparently.
Or are you saying it's compulsory?
As an Australian I get really fed up by people who feel it necessary to parade their angst as my opinion. If you're not happy just leave. There are people queueing up at Christmas Island who'd be glad to take your place.

Re:Banned in Australia

[Anynomous Coward]

No surprise, as Australia used to be a continental size prison and is inhabited by descendants of criminals. Even after some generations, Australians still can not be trusted and need large amounts of positive and negative 'guidance'. Or so it seems to an outsider ;)

Wouldn't the pilot...

[Anonymous Coward]

be able to land with the remaining eye?

close but it's all I got

[bakamorgan]

There was a video on youtube from a news channel that showed what happend when a green laser hit the cockput of a plane/helio but I can't seem to find it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r5-bMstX6g This is about all I can find. Anyways its not so much the fact that it goes into the pilots eye, it's just that illuminates the cockpit like a disco which then doesn't allow the person to see out side the window.

A dot??

[Anonymous Coward]

You think that after traveling a mile or more, a laser beam projects a "dot"? WTF?

Re:A dot??

[Dunbal]

A laser that has been properly collimated does. But if it's not a dot, then 1/d^2 right?

Well, Nature does this to pilots too...

[Gavin Scott]

It's called lightning and it has been a "temporary blindness" risk that pilots have always been required to contend with.

Of course you're probably more alert the the possibility of lightning when flying near thunderstorms than you will be expecting a laser out of nowhere.

I do tend to believe that the risks are potentially overblown here, based on just how fast laser beams spread and so forth. I think it's more a case of outrage and indignity that some asshole would actually point a laster at a pilot flying an aircraft than it is likely to be something that requires banning the devices entirely and making it a federal offense to use one outdoors at night etc.

Personally I think I might prefer the asshole with the laser pointer over having to land in a thunderstorm.

G.

it's a safety of flight issue...

[Anonymous Coward]

IAAP and we've had the cockpit lasered before. While it's certainly unlikely that the laser beam will hit your pupils directly, the pressing issue is, you can very quickly lose your night vision when the beam is refracted/scattered by the windshield. On short final (when these idiots are lasering the cockpits) a loss of night vision (likely) or partial blindness (less likely) will jeopardize the safety of everyone aboard during the approach.

Re:it's a safety of flight issue...

[cusco]

I walk the dogs in my dark neighborhood late at night. As long as I look away from the motion-sensing yard light within a second or so I don't lose my night vision to any noticeable extent. Morons driving with their high beams on are another matter.

Halfway there

[Opportunist]

Now they only have to ban sharks and we're safe!

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[arth1]

No, they don't.
There has not been a single case of a pilot blinded by lasers, nor is it likely there ever will be.

Not only do pilots look at the (rather tall) instrument board most at the time, and don't stare at scenery, but it's also impossible to keep the laser pointer pointed at a moving target at any distance. If anyone were able to do so, don't fine them -- hire them as gunners for the military, because that kind of precision is supernatural.

And at the distance a plane is away, combined with the rather thick windows of a plane, even if a superhuman was able to hit the eye of a pilot for a fraction of a second, it would have far less of an impact than a quick glance at the sun, something people frequently do.

Plain and simple, this is FUD, and another attempt at at the same time scaring people and showing that the powers do something about it.

BUY NOW!

[Frosty Piss]

This is why we can't have nice things. Someone always has to be irresponsible.

Indeed. If you want one of these things for hobby or just for fun, *NOW* is the time to buy, because before too long, you'll need a licence to purchase.

Obligatory

[yabba-dabba-do]

Maybe they should check to make sure it isn't sharks with lasers!

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not actually blinding pilots, it is that at large enough distances a green laser is a rather distracting giant green spot, which makes it quite hard to see other things, like the runway.
See Wicked Lasers' "Photonic Disruptor."

What came first?

[__aazsst3756]

Not familiar with this specific case, but usually airports are built out of town and developers build houses around them. New people move in to the houses and try to close the airport. Many airports try noise abatement approaches, such as higher flight patterns resulting in steep descents, or altering the landing pattern around problem areas where possible. Unfortunately we have lost a lot of good airports this way. Business owners often choose where to build or work by the quality of the local airport, resulting in a catch 22 for politicians. Many towns are now trying to proactively defeat this problem by zoning around airports as industrial only zones.

Re:What came first?

[MichaelSmith]

Sydney airport is pretty much right in the middle of the city. Thats great for access into the city but not so good for livability. Melbourne airport BTW was built with the problem you describe in mind. It has large exclusion zones beyond the end of each runway where houses can't be built.

Re:What came first?

[thegarbz]

It's the same everywhere. People choose to live somewhere and then complain. Workplaces do this too. In my city new tenants moved into a building in an industrial zone right next to Incitec Pivot (a large fertilizer manufacturer) and then proceed to complain about the smell almost every week to the council. What the fuck do these people expect?

Re:What came first?

[eugene ts wong]

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'd like more information.

What do business owners look for in an quality airport? Is it for shipping? Is it for business travel?

Re:What came first?

[Nimey]

One wonders why the council allowed developers to build residential housing out there.

Re:What came first?

[Lunzo]

Sydney airport was on the outskirts of the city when it opened in the 1920s. Sydney is *much* larger these days (around 10 times the population).

Re:What came first?

[MichaelSmith]

Sydney airport was on the outskirts of the city when it opened in the 1920s. Sydney is *much* larger these days (around 10 times the population).

The way it is going Sydney should expand Canberra airport and build a really fast rail line to the ACT.

Re:What came first?

[thegarbz]

Same reason they build schools and communities within 1km of refineries who create alkylate with 80T of hydroflouric acid (look that one up if you're bored :) this is also going on in my city). Eventually the small town becomes impracticably large and the council will get the blame for NOT zoning more residential space for expansion.

When said refinery was built the population of this city was just over 1million, now it's just shy of 1.9million.

duration?

[JSBiff]

I don't know for sure, but seems to me there might be another factor here - duration. Lightning flash quite quickly, maybe a second at the longest. These morons with the lasers, if they happen to have good hand-eye coordination, might be able to track the aircraft pretty well, and keep the laser generally 'focused' on the cockpit windshield for several seconds at a time. I imagine it's sort of the difference between driving with occasional lightning flashes, vs having an oncoming vehicle shining their high-beams in your eyes for 5 or 10 seconds (which, at least for me, feels like an eternity when I'm driving at night, and am having a hard time seeing the road - and in just the wrong situation, might be long enough to cause an accident).

I believe, so far, there have been no fatalities as a result of these clowns, but should an aircraft ever crash, and the flight data recorder has the pilot complaining about being blinded by a laser, this will blow up into a huge media issue.

Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[toby]

"Guns are for self defence" is pure myth. Actually it's worse than that, it's idiocy.

If you don't want your family to live in one of the world's most violent and dangerous societies, why do you create and perpetuate it? The rest of us do just fine not shooting each other and we don't live in a permanent paranoid funk.

You can change it if you want to. Protip: Making guns more available isn't the answer.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[brainboyz]

Protip: Criminals will use whatever weapons they can get, including illegal ones. And if you think guns for defense is a myth, tell that the people saved every year when they shoot the stronger and healthier idiot trying to harm them. People can be evil. Not all criminals and sociopaths are violent because they "had a bad upbringing" or are in "a bad place in their life." Some are just plain evil and take pleasure in harming others or taking what they haven't earned. If that person is stronger than you, your defense against their will involves countering their violence with something that puts you on par with them regardless of physical stature; enter the firearm. There's a reason they say a Democrat is a Republican that hasn't been mugged yet (note: I'm neither).

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Grishnakh]

Sorry, but I've already had to fend off one attempted home invasion (in Phoenix) with my shotgun, so unless you have first-hand experience with violent criminals, I think your opinion is worthless.

I didn't create a violent, dangerous society. That would be the criminal class who did, plus stupid laws and courts who let violent criminals out early, while keeping non-violent drug offenders in. Don't look at me, I didn't vote for the people who did that; if I had my way, drugs would all be decriminalized.

The "rest of you" don't have the same situation we do. If you're in Europe, you live in small, homogeneous countries, so you don't have all the race and poverty problems we do. It's a lot easier to get along when you don't have giant groups of people mired in poverty for whatever reason.

Finally, even here, criminals don't always have guns, because they're not THAT easy to get (thanks to background check laws). So to commit a "gun crime", a criminal has to steal a gun first, and then commit a crime with it. But most criminals don't need guns for their crimes; they use other weapons: bats, knives, or good old-fashioned fists. They spend lots of time in prison pumping iron, so they're ready to use their physical size when they get out.

How exactly do you propose a 90-pound woman to defend herself against a 250 pound man? That's what guns are for, to level the field for physically disadvantaged people.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you. In the UK, after they banned guns, home invasion went through the roof and they're an "island country." Today, you must use proportional force when defending your home and even then the homeowner is thrown in jail for hurting the perp. Burglary is only a ticket able crime. They don't even bring you in. That's where this stuff leads, insanity.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Grishnakh]

Who comes up with crazy laws like that anyway? It's too bad some criminals don't invade their homes and rape them.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading your opinion, I think you are worthless. :)

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Anonymous Coward]

Europe doesn't have race and poverty problems? You ignorance is very apparent.

There's Gypsies; no one likes them for whatever reason. Then there's immigrants from mulsim countries moving to Western European countries. In particular, Paris France has an area of poor muslims surrounding them. There are several issues France has, some valid, some intolerant.

So yeah, European countries have race and poverty issues, and they've been dealing with them without guns because social problems like racial tension and poverty often can't be solved by guns.

The problem you specifically have is that the prison system you're dealing with sucks apples. If you go into prison a druggie, you come out a sociopath.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Burning1]

The "rest of you" don't have the same situation we do. If you're in Europe, you live in small, homogeneous countries, so you don't have all the race and poverty problems we do. It's a lot easier to get along when you don't have giant groups of people mired in poverty for whatever reason.

Not an argument against you at all... But, I just spent a bunch of time with a friend from the UK, and got to talking about violent crime over there. Let me say that from her stories, it really doesn't seem to be the safest place in the world. Just like here in the US, there are good parts of town, and bad parts... And there is plenty of fucked up shit happening.

For example, one major problem over there is glassing.

I've got to say, that while I don't relish the thought of everyone being armed, I don't think banning all guns will do anything to solve problems of violence.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Grishnakh]

Many of the big problems I hear about in Europe seem to involve their Muslim immigrants, especially in France as another poster noted here.

Why Europe ever let middle-eastern Muslims come in, I have no idea. It should have been obvious that they would never assimilate, and that is exactly what causes racial conflicts. They need to all be sent back to their home countries. Both the USA and many European countries are having a lot of problems as a result of poor immigration policies.

As for glassing, yes that can be a problem, just as knives can be. I've heard that the UK also has lots of knife attacks. Take away guns, and people will just resort to another convenient weapon. What are they going to do, ban glass and kitchen knives? Or try to ban pointy knives (a group of doctors in the UK seriously proposed that!).

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Clandestine_Blaze]

Many of the big problems I hear about in Europe seem to involve their Muslim immigrants, especially in France as another poster noted here.

Why Europe ever let middle-eastern Muslims come in, I have no idea. It should have been obvious that they would never assimilate, and that is exactly what causes racial conflicts. They need to all be sent back to their home countries. Both the USA and many European countries are having a lot of problems as a result of poor immigration policies.

So after a long history of French colonization and military control, the Muslim immigrants need to be sent home? If you don't want an immigration problem, don't colonize West African countries and expect the inhabitants to stay put where they are. It's not as if they all decided to pack their bags one day and move to France for their freedoms.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Grishnakh]

You have a point with Algeria, but 1) Muslims are coming from many other countries besides Algeria, and 2) Muslims are going to a lot of other European countries besides France (Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, etc.), several which did not colonize any African countries.

But yeah, it would have been better if the European powers had never gotten involved in Africa. Countries need to keep to themselves and stop trying to establish empires. It never turns out well; just look at the history of Rome.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[guanxi]

Sorry, but I've already had to fend off one attempted home invasion (in Phoenix) with my shotgun, so unless you have first-hand experience with violent criminals, I think your opinion is worthless.

I don't buy that one experience, if true, gives you superior qualifications or knowledge. I've spent much of my life in downtowns of major cities with much higher crime rates than Phoenix, but that doesn't make me an expert. I do know that criminals almost always want easy money, not conflict -- they want your money, not you. Pointing a gun at a criminal greatly increases your chance of getting shot; the mentally unstable (either natural or drug-assisted) may freak out and shoot. A tip for the inexperienced: If they want your money, give it to them; it's just money, it's not worth your life or health.

Your experience coincidentally fits the same old rhetoric from right wing fringe:

The "rest of you" don't have the same situation we do. If you're in Europe, you live in small, homogeneous countries, so you don't have all the race and poverty problems we do. It's a lot easier to get along when you don't have giant groups of people mired in poverty for whatever reason.

These assertions are bizarre. Europe is small, homogenous countries? With no poverty problems? Really? In fact, their race problems are worse than the U.S. right now and have the same cause, lots of bigots who react like animals to anything different than them and inflict suffering on innocent people. It's not race that causes conflict, it's the racists. Aren't centuries of slavery; another of segregation, oppression, and lynchings; and continuing discrimination enough to demonstrate that? And that's just the blacks; don't forget the Catholics (yes, there used to be riots against Catholics!), Native Americans, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, and currently Latinos, gays, and Muslims, etc etc. The bigots simply hate everyone not like them -- and then blame the victims for the problems!

Finally, even here, criminals don't always have guns, because they're not THAT easy to get (thanks to background check laws).

Maybe in Phoenix, though that's not what I understand. Elsewhere, many studies report that it's very easy for anyone to obtain a gun in major cities. Many city governments periodically have gun buy-back programs, where the government buys guns, no questions asked, just to get a few off the streets. Many reports attribute the large numbers of homicides in cities to the easy availability of guns; dumb disputes end in death rather than a black eye because a gun is at hand. Gun rights advocates fight any hint of an attempt to regulate guns, obsessing over one legalistic issue, the Second Amendment of the Constitution (which is vague about personal ownership of firearms), at the expense of many others, including the lives of people dying each year from gun violence. The U.S. has one of the highest murder rates among rich countries, and most of it is poor people killing other poor people of the same race (they live in the same neighborhood).

Both the racist and some (not all) of the gun rights arguments are rationalizations for people to follow their most base instincts, hatred and violence, without responsibility toward the people and society around them. They aren't serious ideas but more a demonstration of political aggression, to threaten anyone how disagrees. And they have a history of backing up those threats with violence.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[dangitman]

It should have been obvious that they would never assimilate, and that is exactly what causes racial conflicts. They need to all be sent back to their home countries.

Yeah, we should listen to an overt racist on how to deal with racial conflict.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Anonymous Coward]

The "rest of you" don't have the same situation we do. If you're in Europe, you live in small, homogeneous countries, so you don't have all the race and poverty problems we do. It's a lot easier to get along when you don't have giant groups of people mired in poverty for whatever reason.

There's so much wrong with this post that I was just going to leave it - but this bit right here does a massive disservice to all Americans, as it indicates that all these stories about how insular you are, are really true.

You picked the most xenophobic country in Europe (France) for your comparison. The French have a history of picking on racial/ethnic/religious groups on a national scale - in fact they're doing it right now with the Roma's. It's an old and well used tactic to distract people from the real causes of their problems - problems which always seem to remain, to be blamed on the next minority which attracts attention. Much like the people you pick on in a later post, middle-eastern Muslims, many of whom are living happily and peacefully - when they are allowed to live without constant attacks on their person, something I would've thought an American would understand given your history - in most European countries.

It really does defy all logical sense that you can think this way. I wonder; do you feel the same way about members of the Jewish diaspora who refused to give up their culture and lifestyles but just wanted to live peacefully? Do you use examples of terrorism carried out by Zionist extremists as a brush to tar all Jewish people? Or is that just reserved for Muslims?

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[AlienIntelligence]

"Guns are for self defence" is pure myth. Actually it's worse than that, it's idiocy.

Says the idiot?

Many, many examples of citizens carrying guns as being a plus
to the overburdened police department.
[ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/09/nyregion/09wheelchair.html?_r=1 ]
[ http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/25792735-41/combs-barista-braziel-affidavit-dutch.csp ]
[ http://www.8newsnow.com/story/13865042/man-thwarts-robbery-by-shooting-at-suspect ]
[ http://voices.washingtonpost.com/crime-scene/anne-arundel/would-be-dunkin-donuts-robber.html ]

Just do your own googling and draw your own conclusions;
citizen gun shot perpetrator OR robber OR thief [ http://news.google.com/news/search?&q=citizen+gun+shot+perpetrator+OR+robber+OR+thief ]
^ fails hard in bing, no boolean? [ http://www.bing.com/search?q=citizen+gun+shot+perpetrator+OR+robber+OR+thief ]

-AI

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great post, but I will disagree with you on one thing. The Second Amendment of the US constitution is not the only rational that people have for guns. A surprising number of otherwise intelligent people believe that holding a gun will protect them from others holding a gun. Furthermore, they believe that holding a gun will enable them to stop other people engaging in anti-social behaviour. It is almost as if a gun is a magical talisman that turns you into a super hero. Finally, they seem to believe that other people with guns will use good judgement and be able to use these tools appropriately even in very stressful situations. Especially in the US there seems to be a demarcation between "good guys" and "bad guys". The "bad guys" will always be able to get guns so it is important for the "good guys" to have them in order to create balance. They don't seem to have much to say about all the other guys like the "stupid guys", the "insane guys", the "scared guys", etc, etc.

I don't know. I'm not against gun ownership per se, but untrained people using guns for "protection" is a bit wacky to me. If it's OK to carry guns around for protection, why not swords? Surely if someone sees me walking down the street with a katana, they won't bother me, right? And if I see some dude shoplifting I can cut his hands off. Sweet. Let's get the political ball rolling!

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you. In the UK, after they banned guns, home invasion went through the roof and they're an "island country." Today, you must use proportional force when defending your home and even then the homeowner is thrown in jail for hurting the perp. Burglary is only a ticket able crime. They don't even bring you in. That's where this stuff leads, insanity.

True Story
Firstly, dates back to the mid '80s, and is set in the UK.
Hear a noise at the door at the rear of the house I was renting at the time, realise someone is trying to force the door, I grab my 'hunting' knife (4" blade) sneak down the stairs to the rear door, confirm that there's someone trying to get in, throw open door from the inside yelling like a loony and chase the buggers who were trying to break in down the street. Report incident to my Landlord, he reports it to the police, get a visit a couple of days later from el CID, basically told 'we don't care what you do to them once they break in, that's self defence, but don't chase them onto the streets with a knife, we'll have to arrest you.'

Sad thing is, this knife (and I still have it, it's sitting beside the monitor as I type) was purchased from a gunshop whose owner was the victim of a cruel paradox created by the UK gun laws - surrounded by weapons with which he *could* have defended himself with but was unable to, thanks to the rules regarding having the guns doubly secured and the ammo stored in a safe, he was murdered by a couple of shitheads who robbed his shop looking for guns. Shot, I seem to recall.

Murdered, but he didn't break the law, a fat lot of comfort that was for his family.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're in Europe, you live in small, homogeneous countries, so you don't have all the race and poverty problems we do. It's a lot easier to get along when you don't have giant groups of people mired in poverty for whatever reason.

You evidently know squat about Europe. We have the same race and poverty problems here - just go into the suburbs of Paris for example. This is typical American dumb-ass talk purporting that the US somehow is different where it is not in order to defend a particular viewpoint.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Anonymous Coward]

When seconds count, the Police are only minutes away.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[5KVGhost]

"So yeah, European countries have race and poverty issues, and they've been dealing with them without guns because social problems like racial tension and poverty often can't be solved by guns."

Europe has not been "dealing with" their problems. They've been ignoring them, passing laws to stop people from talking about them, telling police not to enforce the laws, blaming the victims of violent crime. Anything to avoid dealing with the problems caused by a large population of unassimilated, violent, xenophobic immigrant population.

Could those problems be solved by guns? Ask the folks who had their cars set on fire in Paris, their property destroyed in riots, or the police who fear to enter parts of London because they know the bad guys there will kill them.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[rastos1]

... they want your money, not you.

... they want your money and no witnesses.

FTFY

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[ImprovOmega]

I found this chart to be enlightening. It's from 2003, but the trend should still hold (and the arguments haven't changed since then anyway). Almost 4 times as many people die in car accidents than are murdered by guns (11,920 by gun, 43,340 by car accident) and suicides by gun are about 50% higher than murder by gun (16,907 suicides). So, statistically, you're more likely to die by your own hand by a gun than to be murdered by one. That's...surprisingly comforting.

Heck, accidental poisoning (19,457) is more likely to get you than murder. The point is, I think we over-react to the problem. Gun violence is splashy, but on the decline. The current laws are fine, we don't be legislation by emotion.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[misexistentialist]

criminals almost always want easy money, not conflict

Then they wouldn't enjoy robberies. Most violent criminals are sadists. You're welcome to trust in their kindness, but the rest of us don't enjoy taking a beating or begging for our lives as much as you might.

obsessing over one legalistic issue, the Second Amendment of the Constitution

The USA is the Constitution. Saying it is a trivial matter that should weighed amongst other considerations is advocating something between anarchy and despotism.

gun rights arguments are rationalizations for people to follow their most base instincts, hatred and violence, without responsibility toward the people and society around them. They aren't serious ideas but more a demonstration of political aggression, to threaten anyone how disagrees.

Here on Earth human beings are animals. Society is created and maintained through violence, and there will always be someone pointing a gun at you, if only the political elite. Guns are as much a promise of peace as a threat of aggression.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

> unless you have first-hand experience with violent criminals, I think your opinion is worthless.

That's a bad way to look at it. You have more experience with the problem than most of us, so your voice carries more weight. But it doesn't make you an exclusive authority, and the opinion of others can be of value. For example, the airplane captain who landed his plane in the Hudson had previously written on how to land a plane in a river in case of a mid-air emergency. He'd never done it before, but that didn't mean his opinion of how it should be done was worthless.

The appeal to authority adds weight and a higher likelihood of correctness to opinion or to information, but does not render the opinion or information correct. I can tie my shoes inefficiently all my life, and still be shown at the end a better way to do it by a five-year-old.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[nurb432]

I do know that criminals almost always want easy money, not conflict -- they want your money, not you.

Sure, not every time, but sometimes they do, and you can go to hell if you think you can dictate what i can and cant do in order to prevent it. You can take chances with your life, its your right. But its my right not to be a victim ( dead or alive ) if i don't want to.

Pointing a gun at a criminal greatly increases your chance of getting shot; the mentally unstable (either natural or drug-assisted) may freak out and shoot. A tip for the inexperienced: If they want your money, give it to them; it's just money, it's not worth your life or health.

If you are to the point of having pointing a gun at someone and not in the process of shooting them, then you are irresponsible.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[guanxi]

... they want your money, not you.

... they want your money and no witnesses.

An interesting theory, but not true in practice. Of all the property theft in the country, very little ends in murder.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[guanxi]

When seconds count, the Police are only minutes away.

I'm not against gun ownership, but I don't think this argument is so cut and dried.

The same could be said of medical care in the case of a heart attack, which you are probably thousands of times more likely to experience. Do you carry a defibrillator and, in case that doesn't work, a scalpel?

It's very unlikely that you'll ever be in a situation where you need police in seconds to save you from serious harm, where having a gun will help you, and where you will use it successfully. It's arguably more likely that you will misuse a gun.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[sjames]

I'm not saying you do this, but society as a whole: If we really want to curb violence, we should address poverty in a meaningful way. Oh, sure we have "programs" for that, but they are designed to do as little as possible without creating the embarrassment of having people die of hunger in the streets. Typically they are full of tricks and traps that make it practically impossible to get off of them once on. Quite often that's the result of political forces that can't wipe them out outright as they would like to, so they instead sabotage them so they can later point and say "I told you it would fail".

Sure, it's not the same sort of poverty as people starving to death somewhere, but it is the sort that makes it clear that there are two mostly seperate societies in this country and they're not in the enjoyable one.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[guanxi]

criminals almost always want easy money, not conflict

Then they wouldn't enjoy robberies. Most violent criminals are sadists. You're welcome to trust in their kindness, but the rest of us don't enjoy taking a beating or begging for our lives as much as you might.

No idea what your basis is that criminals 'enjoy robberies' and are sadists. It doesn't match my sense of it, and I've never heard that. I'm sure some do and some don't, but I'd need to see some data or expertise that indicates that it's overhelmingly sadists (that's a lot of sadists).

obsessing over one legalistic issue, the Second Amendment of the Constitution

The USA is the Constitution. Saying it is a trivial matter that should weighed amongst other considerations is advocating something between anarchy and despotism.

I didn't say it was trivial at all, but it's just one issue, and one interpretation of one clause in the Constitution, among many. There's much more to our country than one legal document; while I agree it's very valuable and fundamental, our responsibilities don't end there (or start there) and most of what I do during the day is not related to it; most of the world functions without it.

People often use it to justify what they already want to do, just like many use the Bible. On one hand, they aren't really arguing for the authoritative document, but for their interpretation of it. Nowhere does the Constitution say, 'without regulation whatsoever, you have the right to own a handgun, as much ammo as you want, and to use it according to your judgement'. It says only, A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.. You could argue that we're restricted owning and using arms as part of a militia.

But I don't think that's really the issue. When people reach for some higher authority to justify themselves, often it's because they can't come up with their own reason. Why should gun laws be so liberal? 'Because I want to use guns' isn't convincing, though it's the truth for many. 'Because the Constitution says so' (akin to the old, 'because the Bible says so') is more powerful.

Again, I'm not against gun ownership, but I think these arguments are weak.

gun rights arguments are rationalizations for people to follow their most base instincts, hatred and violence, without responsibility toward the people and society around them. They aren't serious ideas but more a demonstration of political aggression, to threaten anyone how disagrees.

Here on Earth human beings are animals. Society is created and maintained through violence, and there will always be someone pointing a gun at you, if only the political elite. Guns are as much a promise of peace as a threat of aggression.

You're justifying people turning to hatred and violence, and away from their greater responsibilities? Is that something you support?

I think your depiction of society is false. Societies are people interacting based on a variety of motivations, from altruism to enlightened self-interest to short-sighted greed; probably every person experiences all of them. Humans are naturally social and naturally want to further their communities. How do you explain all the good works and self-sacrifice in our society? In an ironic example, how do you explain police and soldiers, who take great risks for our society and gain very little personally?

The society you describe may exist in Mogidishu, but the great majority of humanity goes about their days without it. Violence is a necessary part of society, but only on rare situations. To explode that into the basis and operational means of our society is ridiculous.

(If people are so violent and selfish, how and why did the political elite write the Constitution in the first place?)

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[guanxi]

you can go to hell if you think you can dictate what i can and cant do in order to prevent it

That's insight and deep thinking for you. Consider this: Can I dictate that you can't shoot someone on the street because you think he's threatening? That you can't use hand grenades?

The 'go to hell' comment is what I mean by political aggression. It's an attempt to intimidate anyone who would challenge your ideas. Almost like firing a political gun, I suppose ... Well, welcome to democracy and society, where people can act and think in ways you don't like (and who made you God and your opinions godlike, that your dissenters are damned?) without going to hell.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Grishnakh]

I definitely agree; not only does our society not really help people in poverty, it instead sets up social programs that do more harm than good. But contrary to what you say, they don't even keep people from dying of hunger in the streets: lots of homeless people die every year in the streets in America, while society, instead of trying to fix this problem, instead tries reorienting public benches to make them stop panhandling and go away. But while these people are dying of exposure, other people collect welfare checks and sit at home watching TV because they've figured out how to work the system.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[sjames]

I wouldn't be too hard on the ones collecting the check and watching TV. The screwy tricks and traps teach them to do that. If they do more, they end up with much less and they end up on the streets with their kids.

But yes, you are correct that we don't even manage to prevent people from dieing of poverty in the streets. Much of the effort there is expended on making sure they die out of sight and get cleared away before too many people see the corpse.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't speak about Europe. Racists have been held on a pretty short leash the last 30 years here. Neo nazis are a sad small group living in the margin that have no voice. We have BIG integration problems and the problem are the immigrants that are unwilling to integrate. We have Turks that are basically extreme nationalists in someone else's country. They form a subculture, they do however tend to stay out of crime, get reasonable education and the second generation does speak the language. You have Moroccans which are a very troubled people (second and third generation, in netherlands belgium and france), they have no respect for the country they live in and are poor on education, high on crime. They cope with a heavy identity crisis and have not many good rolemodels, unlike the Turkish there is no family bond to keep youngsters in check. These people also are in very low standing with the original population(including me, I couldn't care less about the alliancyless bastards) . Since the 90's we've got a whole new batch of fugetives from several African countries which will give us many problems in te coming decades for integration of thes large subgroups is a slow and painful process.
The mass immigration in europe is something very different from the assimilation of ex-slaves.

Ps you're liberal prick :P

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[nurb432]

They are not my ideas, they are the very foundation of our country. Try reading them sometime. Don't like the rules here, get the hell out of my country. ( as if you don't agree with the constitution, its not your country and you don't deserve to be here )

( yes. I'm making the assumption that you are an American. If you aren't, then take your socialist ideals and shove them.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd posit that calling the second amendment "vague" falls into the area of rationalizing a personal ideal as well. Otherwise, you have a solid point. ;)

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[CodeBuster]

Pointing a gun at a criminal greatly increases your chance of getting shot; the mentally unstable (either natural or drug-assisted) may freak out and shoot.

So shoot first and aim for the head with your shotgun. When the police arrive, show them the forced entry evidence and explain that you shot the home invader in self defense. It's your word against a headless corpse with evidence of forced entry. After all, almost nobody questions the right of an honest citizen to shoot first and ask questions later when a home invader crashes through a window or breaks down the door.

Both the racist and some (not all) of the gun rights arguments are rationalizations for people to follow their most base instincts, hatred and violence, without responsibility toward the people and society around them.

In some cases the rights of individuals trump the common good. I will not submit myself to be disarmed because you live in fear of criminals. If you want to cower in fear of criminals and guns then do it without involving me. What's next? Should we ban cars because lots of people, including pedestrians, die in automobile crashes every year? Give me a break.

They aren't serious ideas but more a demonstration of political aggression, to threaten anyone how disagrees. And they have a history of backing up those threats with violence.

Disagreement is fine, but your right to disagree verbally does not give you the right to deprive law abiding citizens of a reasonable and effective means of defense which necessarily includes firearms. The police cannot be everywhere all of the time and the courts have ruled time and again that the police, and by extension the state, cannot be held liable for failing to protect any individual citizen with whom they did not have a specific prior agreement (i.e. witness protection). It falls then to individual citizens to protect themselves because the police are mostly not available to do that for us during the split second that we have to act. They arrive after the crime has already occurred to collect the bodies and photograph the crime scene, not to protect those who are already dead. I don't care that the police "get their man" if I'm already dead, so I prefer to have the opportunity, like Han Solo, to shoot first in defense of my life and my home. Personally, I don't think that's unreasonable or too much to ask.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[CodeBuster]

It's very unlikely that you'll ever be in a situation where you need police in seconds to save you from serious harm, where having a gun will help you, and where you will use it successfully.

And yet there are many factual cases of people successfully defending their homes, lives and loved ones because they had access guns when they needed them and knew how to use them. Every law abiding citizen, once they reach the age of majority, has the right to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to exercise their individual 2nd amendment rights.

It's arguably more likely that you will misuse a gun.

Society doesn't ban things merely because somebody might possibly misuse them. If we did that, we would be living in a kindergarten play room full of Fischer Price toys getting nothing useful done. If a responsible and law abiding citizen wishes to own a gun, for whatever reason, he or she is entitled to do so until actions demonstrate otherwise. Here in America we judge people based upon what they do, not what they might do.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[guanxi]

They are not my ideas, they are the very foundation of our country. Try reading them sometime. Don't like the rules here, get the hell out of my country. ( as if you don't agree with the constitution, its not your country and you don't deserve to be here )

Ha. I'm not sure if you're a troll, but just for the heck of it:

Yes, I'm a proud American. The foundation of the society is that we decide things democratically. Everyone likes to think their ideas are privileged for one reason or another, just like you do, and everyone gets as many votes as you get.

I note you didn't answer my question, you just responded with more threats and intimidation. It must be hard to live in a democracy if you can't respond better to disagreements. Tough luck.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[guanxi]

Aren't you the same person who, below, said he's above the law, called me a coward, and whose solution to high-risk difficult situations is to talk like John Wayne and recklessly shoot people (bragging about literally shooting someone's head off). It seems you can't tell the difference between action scenes in movies and reality.

Why should I take seriously anything you say? With your judgement, I really hope you don't have a firearm.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[guanxi]

Ah, you're going to blow their heads off, I'm a coward, and you're going to break the law. Yet we should take seriously your ideas and judgement about life-and-death issues?

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[CodeBuster]

Aren't you the same person who, below, said he's above the law, called me a coward, and whose solution to high-risk difficult situations is to talk like John Wayne and recklessly shoot people (bragging about literally shooting someone's head off). It seems you can't tell the difference between action scenes in movies and reality.

I didn't call you any of those things, I merely pointed out that if I choose to own a firearm and use it in defense of my own home, which is perfectly permissible under the law, that's nobodys' business but my own.

Why should I take seriously anything you say? With your judgement, I really hope you don't have a firearm.

With my judgment? You don't even know me. Are you one of those types who always sits in judgment of others? Perhaps you believe that you know what's best for everyone, including people you don't know and haven't met. I suppose it'd be best if I didn't mention that I do indeed own several firearms, after all, I wouldn't want to ruin your day...

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[CodeBuster]

Perhaps it would be constructive to ask why it bothers you so much that some people own guns and might use them under appropriate circumstances to defend their lives and property? Maybe I'm assuming something that isn't true in your case, but when people argue that gun ownership is not permissible they often follow that up by advocating for the confiscation of all guns in private ownership or some intermediate step towards that goal. Is it not possible, in your opinion, to possess a firearm without being a violent racist?

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[CodeBuster]

I didn't call you any of those things

Ah, you were referring to a different reply. Yes, I should have chosen my words more carefully and I apologize.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[guanxi]

IMHO, that shows character. Thanks. I'm not offended, I'm just not willing to spend my time discussing things on that level.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[guanxi]

Perhaps it would be constructive to ask why it bothers you so much that some people own guns and might use them under appropriate circumstances to defend their lives and property? Maybe I'm assuming something that isn't true in your case, but when people argue that gun ownership is not permissible they often follow that up by advocating for the confiscation of all guns in private ownership or some intermediate step towards that goal. Is it not possible, in your opinion, to possess a firearm without being a violent racist?

(I appreciate your comments in your other post; thanks.)

Yeah, assuming isn't such a good idea. I support gun ownership -- I'd strongly object if they were banned -- and I support people using them appropriately. Guns are obviously dangerous and like most dangerous things they should be regulated; their distribution controlled, licensing required, etc. Without knowing much about it, I'd probably consider banning weapons unnecessary for self-defense or hunting (e.g., assault weapons, large clips, automatic weapons, etc.), restricting distribution to stringently licensed sellers (including serious penalties for violating distribution rules), and make licensing and training owners much more stringent. Buying and owning one should be a serious matter.

But given the right to own one, is it a good idea? My judgement is that for the vast majority, it's so unlikely that they'll ever use the gun appropriately that mistakes are a bigger threat than attackers; i.e., on average the gun does much more harm than good. Appropriate use requires all of the following: A significant threat to life, limb, or arguably property; the owner's presence; the gun's presence; the police unavailable; shooting and risking killing someone is the best option (!); the opportunity to use the gun (maybe the attacker sees you first); the owner assesses the situation correctly (tired? drunk? bad mood? just not too bright? almost certainly terrified?); and they use it effectively (e.g., without getting shot first, without missing, without shooting the wrong person, etc.). How many times will that happen in your life? It almost certainly won't. An error (a kids steals it, an attacker steals it, the owner shoots their drunk neighbor, the owner is drunk and misjudges, someone uses it for suicide, etc.), is much more likely than appropriate use; it's a tragic mistake waiting to happen. I'll probably never own a gun and never miss it, just like I fly on planes without a parachute. Now your judgement may differ and that's fine -- buy a gun, but absolutely be sure to prevent those errors -- but my point is that the self-defense argument isn't cut and dried at all.

Certainly few gun owners are racist or violent; I have friends who are part of that silent, mature, and vast majority of gun owners. But the racist and violent ones sure like to rant on the Internet, and that's what I object to.

My post was an argument against the violence, irresponsibility, racism, and intimidation that permeate the debate (and the post I responded to). I'm well aware that it's trendy to get online and blow your top and I think it's very destructive to our society -- it prevents real discussion and creates a society that's permissive of hatred and violence. To let it go unchallenged creates the appearance of silent approval; I'm not willing to be permissive about it.

Re:Yes, PLEASE ban cars!

[juhaz]

Countries need to keep to themselves and stop trying to establish empires. It never turns out well; just look at the history of Rome.

Rome stood over a thousand years. Over two if you count the Byzantines as Romans. Which non-expansionist countries would you say "turned out well" in comparison, by, for example, lasting longer?

Easy Fix for the Problem Without Legal Bull$hit

[BrendaEM]

Laser pointers have a very narrow specta. I narrow band interference coating can be placed in the airplane windshields at 435 and 660 nanometers.
The cost would be negligible for an airplane. In the meantime glasses with similar coatings would protect pilots.

A ban on lasers would deprive individuals of one of the greatest inventions ever. One of those people may use on in a more productive manner, and if prevented they may never make their contribution to technology.

Problem solved.

-Brenda Make

Re:Easy Fix for the Problem Without Legal Bull$hit

[robogun]

Here
are the glasses, these would actually be overkill as they can stop a beam pointed directly inward at point blank range.

Re:Easy Fix for the Problem Without Legal Bull$hit

[smellsofbikes]

Narrow-band interference coatings aren't *that* narrow-band. That's important because I own portable battery-powered lasers with emission center frequencies of 660nm, 635 nm, 593 nm, dual 510 and 578 nm, 532nm, 473 nm, and 405 nm. Only the dual-output copper bromide laser is difficult to obtain. Once you coat a windshield with interference coatings at all those frequencies, with an OD of say 3, you're going to have something that's nearly opaque.

Along with that, there are plenty of times when we need to see red and green: signal guns if you've lost your radio, glidepath lights... and sure we could change those to other colors, with great difficulty retraining people all over the world who are used to those colors and what they mean, but there are reasonably cheap laser diodes in almost every color of the spectrum these days.

I'm not arguing we should ban laser pointers or laser diodes by any means. I'm just suggesting that coatings on windshields aren't going to solve this problem. (And I'm not sure how you're going to manage to put an interference coating on the acrylic windshield in the Cessna I usually fly. I don't know what Boeing uses for their windshields: maybe they do use glass.)

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[arth1]

Perhaps people who can't deal with momentary distractions shouldn't be pilots? Gods know what they'd do if they ever saw sun reflected from a building, or hit a bird, or saw lightning.

Citation supplied

[dr_db]

Here is one that I knew about off hand...

http://articles.cnn.com/1997-05-14/us/9705_14_russia.laser_1_laser-device-russian-ship-laser-burns?_s=PM:US

Google will return more.

Oops wrong wavelength,

[BrendaEM]

Sorry about wavelength. Will still work at proper wavelengths as laser light is generally monochromatic. I'm tired.

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[camperdave]

Laser pointers are not all that coherent. The beam would likely "paint" the entire airplane at a mile away.

Remedy

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't you equip aircraft with slightly more powerful lasers that shine back whenever this happens?

umm...

[Charliemopps]

Wouldn't simply polarizing the cockpit windows completely negate this problem? Even polarized sunglasses would work.

Re:umm...

[seeker_1us]

No, you do not understand how polarization works. People use polarized sunglasses to reduce the glare reflected off of the ground and water. That is predominantly horizontally polarized, so sunglasses that pass vertical polarization will reduce that glare. You cannot control the polarization angle of a laser pointer aimed at a cockpit (or even if it is a polarized laser).

Lasers don't blind pilots...

[Anonymous Coward]

...people blind pilots.

When law abiding citizens are unable to buy high powered laser pointers, then only criminals will have high powered laser pointers.

Oh, oops, did I forget the opening tag again?

Re:Lasers don't blind pilots...

[scdeimos]

The problem is that you don't need "high power" laser pointers, such as the 500W CO2 lasers in laser cutters, to dazzle somebody. You can dazzle somebody with a 10mW AAA-powered handheld unit - same as you'd use for laser pointing in presentations.

Unfortunately the dickheads in society have fucked things up for everybody else - which is really how all laws come to be in the first place, right?

Re:Lasers don't blind pilots...

[f3rret]

I would exactly call a 500W cutting laser a 'pointer'.

Re:Lasers don't blind pilots...

[RMH101]

Unless you're using it to make a really serious point...

Re:Lasers don't blind pilots...

[timbos]

Nor will it dazzle anyone: it's mid infra-red and invisible to the human eye.

Interesting loophole...

[BetterSense]

Airline rules vary, but typically the gun has to be in a case 'designed for holding firearms' and it must be locked.

Get that? It must be locked. NORMAL checked luggage not only doesn't have to be locked, it's not allowed to be locked (so TSA can rifle through it as they please and steal your shit).

So if you want to be able to lock your checked baggage, just fly with a gun. Not only will you be able to lock your gun case, you will be REQUIRED to do so, and anything else you can fit in that gun case can be locked too. I used to know a guy who claimed to always fly with a starter pistol (legal in many jurisdictions) just so he could check a lockable case.

IANAL YMMV

Re:Interesting loophole...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll do something like this, when I have to send a server in checked luggage. You don't actually need a starter pistol or a real gun - just the ammo. Just follow the rules for packing a single 22 caliber round, locked up properly, and chained to the chassis. You can throw the bullet away if the server is making a one way trip. (grin)

http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/editorial_1666.shtm

Re:Interesting loophole...

[fishbowl]

This is true but when the airports are in places where guns can be carried legally, you don't have to put it into the locked case until you are handing it over to the baggage handlers. You can go anywhere at Tucson International or Phoenix Sky Harbor with a sidearm on your belt, right up to the checkpoint.

Re:Interesting loophole...

[dhaines]

For professionals traveling with very expensive equipment, handguns in the Pelican cases are insurance. Heck, just the cases cost more than the pistols used to gain lock-ability.

Wouldn't call it a "loophole," though. I don't think there's been any intent to block otherwise legal firearms from *checked* baggage.

http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/editorial_1666.shtm

With a tiny bit of googling...

[nathan s]

...you'd come across this example of what it does to a pilot's view of a runway.

Re:With a tiny bit of googling...

[cusco]

If I hadn't already commented above I'd mod this up. First good examination of the topic that I've seen.

ORLY?

[Anonymous Coward]

The damn thing doesn't appear to blind the cat.

Why not just issue laser safety glasses?

[ddt]

Why don't they just issue laser safety glasses to pilots, and they can put them on when the ass-hats arrive?

http://www.thorlabs.us/newgrouppage9.cfm?objectGroup_ID=762

What should MS do?

[Provocateur]

When will there be an MS Flight Sim Fly Red-eye/ Green Laser-in-my-eye Edition?

Defensive possibilities?

[Acheron]

Is there a passive defense against this? I'm very curious: this would seem to be a fairly serious threat for a military plane in combat, how do they deal with it? Is there a film that could be retrofitted to canopy windows on commercial craft?

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, yeah about that, I'm an ATPL pilot and I've been distracted by lasers on finals plenty of times. By the times it hits us, it's this big very bright glowing dot and it obscures our view. It usually flickers back and forward too and it's incredibly distracting, the last thing anyone needs is a distraction during finals.

Filter it out

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it make sense to coat the cockpit windows with laser light attenuating filter material?

Hallucinations

[Florian Weimer]

Are these incidents only self-reported? How would a pilot tell a short visual hallucination from a laser pointer "strike"?

USA more of a monoculture than Euope perhaps?

[fantomas]

"The "rest of you" don't have the same situation we do. If you're in Europe, you live in small, homogeneous countries, so you don't have all the race and poverty problems we do."

- If you consider the EU compared to the USA, we have a bigger population than you
- we have 25+ nationalities with their own languages and cultures to start with

Even on an individual level, I wouldn't describe Europe as being "small homogeneous countries". May I ask how much European travelling you've done, out of interest?

- my brother taught in a school in London, there were 30 different mother tongues spoken by kids in this school of approx 300 children.

- "small" : well the UK has a population of 60m, France has a population of 65m. Small compared to the whole of the USA but equal to the combined population of several USA states each.

- "small" does not necessarily mean no poverty. I'd guess that your most populous states are not necessarily the wealthiest and the smallest are not necessarily the poorest. Check the level of income of Albania (3m) while you're at it.

- Alas homogeneous as well does not mean free of racism. I think there's quite a lot of evidence to suggest there is a lot of racism in strongly monocultural societies.

- "the rest of you" suggests you feel you are the exception to the rule, that the majority of the world has a different situation and that you need exceptional gun laws to survive. Would you think this is so?

I think you can reduce the number of guns and violence in your society and I wish you luck in doing so. It will be a long path though as your country is so awash with them and exports them freely to neighbouring countries as well. It appears that many Americans don't feel they can go to sleep safely unless they have a loaded gun in the house. I think few Europeans would say they'd sleep a lot better if they had a loaded gun in the house.

Good luck there, be safe. Feel free to visit any time.

ok, so you've never been to Europe...

[fantomas]

Ok, so you are telling us what our social problems are having never visited here. Hmm, sets you at a little bit of a disadvantage there in claiming to know our society....

I suppose this is valid if you can tell us how you've "heard" about the reason for social problems here. Bit of 'citation needed' issue I think.

"Why Europe ever let middle-eastern Muslims come in, I have no idea. It should have been obvious that they would never assimilate, and that is exactly what causes racial conflicts."

Because most of us get along just fine? Why is it 'obvious' that people will never assimilate, when so clearly lots of people do? You really have little experience of walking around European towns do you? Yes, this is personal, my best mate is of Middle Eastern heritage, went to school with him since I was ten, played in the same chess club, differed over football teams (how can anybody support QPR and hold their head high? I'll give you that point ;-) ) been to too many parties together, he met a Norwegian girl, moved there for a while, they've got a beautiful little daughter, we still all hang out 30 years later and the kids all play on the beach in the town we grew up while us oldies chat about the crazy time when me Karim and Andy drove round France and Belgium in Karim's knackered old mini with all our stuff and 2 guitars...

Mate... you've never even been to Europe and you claim to know better than us? Hmmm.... I think you should come and visit some time...

I admit my experience of the USA has been limited, but at least I've seen a few cities, hung out in inner city Detroit with mates there, Spanish part of Manhattan with a mate there, drove from coast to coast and stayed in some small places on the way, been to Texas, seen a few places and talked to a few people...

I think I know one possible cause

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen green lasers coming out of a military base (local city base not some Area 51 shit). Looked like they were aiming at all kinds of objects. Couldn't tell if they pointed at any planes (couldn't see any), but I wouldn't be surprised.

Can anyone tell me if the (US) military has standard equipment that may be causing this? Or was this just multiple private bought lasers used by off duty soldiers?

My god, are you that out of touch?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Aiming a laser steadily at a target. Gosh darn nabbit, that must be so darn hard. Else the military would be using it all the time to light up targets... oh wait

THEY ARE!

Laser target designation, it has been all the rage since the first gulf war. It really ain't that complicated. You get device with some optics attached and you AIM them. Like say similar to how you aim a gun. You are aware that ordinary rifles pose a threath to aircraft in their range because a reasonably skilled marksman can hit a COMBAT plane? And airliners are big fat slow moving objects going in a straight line. Oh you don't have to correct for the trajectory of a bullet with a laser.

Read up on how the Red Baron was killed.

Are the wussies of slashdot that badly cordinated they can't train a pair of goggles on an aircraft? It really ain't all the difficult. Any cameraman can do it with far heavier equipment.

Re:My god, are you that out of touch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but I repectfully disagree. Military laser designators are much different beasts than your average hand held laser designed to point at a briefing screen.

Let me pull out the trig book. Let's see... the tangent of 1 degree is approximately .0175, so at 1500 feet (which I figure is about the shortest possible distance you would have to hit an approaching airliner if you stood at an airport perimeter fence) a mere shake of 1 degree of arc will result in a swing of 26 feet at the target. So you would need to keep within about a 10th of a degree of wobble to keep a beeam on a target the size of the window of an airliner. This is not nearly so trivial as you would seem to imply.

All that said, there is still danger. A team of six people wiggling their pointers at the windscreen of an airliner might have a decent chance of hitting someone's eye. One person would have some chance, but a small percentage of success, in my opinion.

Re:My god, are you that out of touch?

[sribe]

Well, it's not that hard to aim something and keep within about 1 degree of arc. This is readily achievable with a rifle with some practice. A rifle. Which is big, and heavy, and recoils. I would expect it to be easier with a laser pointer. Now, assuming 1 degree of wobble roughly somewhere around the cockpit, the beam would not be consistently missing the cockpit window, it would be crossing back and forth over it, intermittently flashing the cockpit, and as someone (whom you seem to be ignoring) pointed out, the window would diffuse/diffract the beam and appear to "light up" with a painful intensity that would dazzle the pilot, leaving him unable to see clearly.

Re:My god, are you that out of touch?

[ArsenneLupin]

A rifle. Which is big, and heavy, and recoils. I would expect it to be easier with a laser pointer.

As any photographer knows, it is actually easier to keep a heavy object (such as a DSLR camera) steady than an object that is too light (such as a point-and-shoot).

Re:My god, are you that out of touch?

[sribe]

Ahem, that does not apply at all when the heavy object is close to a meter long, and you have to actually pull a trigger, and it slams back into you...

True, but stupid

[SmallFurryCreature]

Yes, and auto-pilot can fly an aircraft better for 99% of the time. Pity that 1% is the take off and landing where the risk is the biggest. Back to the drawing board.

Remember that pilot who succesfully landed his airliner on water? Auto-pilot or pilot skill? And how do you think that pilot got skilled? By turning on the auto-pilot?

Re:True, but stupid

[drsmithy]

Thanks for repeating what I already said. Helps to drive the point home.

Oh n0es Ban EvrythIng!!111!11

[BeanThere]

"resulted in a ban on all laser pointers in the state of New South Wales."

Sigh ... can we please ban 'knee-jerk banning' based on statistically highly unlikely incidents that don't even actually cause safety problems because 'this is why we have co-pilots' (an incident that was probably already illegal in this case)?

Why don't we just ban EVERYTHING, in advance, just in case anyone uses it in a bad way? Woman throws an ashtray at husband's head? Ban ashtrays! Man throws coffee mug back? Ban mugs! A child trips over a LAN cable? Ban LAN cables!

But why wait? Let's introduce a new bill called the "Ban Everything Bill".

Use the Force, Luke!

[freightdog]

I still challenge that lost eyesight is the least of a pilot's worries, but this is the argument that is put forward. The pussies comment was a generalization based upon my opinion of a particular event in the news, because a flight crew came across as especially whiny and were threatening to sue the whole world because of this.

How do you think we read the instruments- by Braille? Instrument lighting has a rheostat so you can turn it down at night. I keep them dim so that it's easier to spot traffic- one bright light in the cockpit will drown out faint lights outside.

How about this: I'll put you on a dark road and break your headlamps: Now you only have your parking lights to see the road markings by; enough under normal circumstances if there are no other lights out there.

Now I'm going to shine a laser in your eyes. Don't worry, it's only a Class II, so it won't actually burn your retina, just overload your rods. Now you can't see. Please drive at 75mph. Don't want to? Oops, I put some epoxy under the accelerator pedal. ("This is glue. Strong stuff.")

This is what it's like when you get hit. You can't really see and you can't stop or slow down. You revert to basics and stare at the attitude indicator while blinking like mad, trying to see through the spots and ignore 'the leans'.

Before you opine about the tendencies of professional pilots, try flying five days (nights) a week for a few years. Oh, my credentials: Airline Transport Pilot and Multi-engine Instructor certificates, Beech 1900 type rating, 135 Check Airman, 4500+ hours total time, 1500+ night, 700+ instrument.

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[freightdog]

No, they don't. There has not been a single case of a pilot blinded by lasers, nor is it likely there ever will be.

Strawman argument. The issue is not permanent blindness, but disorientation, temporary blindness, or injury. There are multiple reports of pilots being injured by lasers:

Burned retina: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/sep/28/20040928-111356-3924r/

Ruptured blood vessels: http://www.marconews.com/news/2011/jan/03/collier-sheriff-helicopter-pilots-injured-laser/?partner=yahoo_feeds

Unspecified possible injury: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/11/25/319357/pilot-injured-in-american-md-82-laser-incident.html

You might not be impressed because there's no blood, but an eye injury can be a career-ender for a pilot. Disorientation is the most common result of lasing incidents, with some cases of temporary blindness. Reduced vision, even temporarily, is a Big Deal when flying.

Currently only humans can be pilots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly the only people you can recruit as pilots are humans. And humans have this impractical optical sensor called "eye" that simply is not made for quick changes of dark and light.

captcha: chipmunk

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[WhatsAProGingrass]

It may not blind someone but have you ever had a laser pointed at your face? It makes you want to duck and close eyes and look away. If you were a pilot and a laser was pointed at you, I be your reaction would be the same. I'd think to myself "someone is pointing a gun in my face and I'm about to be shot." or at a minimum "a laser will blind me (even though it probably won't do shit) so I better duck and cover"

Infra-red lasers?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's to stop someone with say, a 120mW infra-red laser and a night-vision monocular from blinding pilots permanently, and essentially invisibly?
Curious as I own both of these items...

100mw Laser pointer for what, burning holes!?!!?

[elkto]

A 100mw "Laser Pointer" for what, burning holes in the heads of you audence who may have dosed off?
4mm to 8mm divergence at 3 miles, how much did you spend for the collimator?
How a device like this works its way into the public sector labeled at a "Laser Pointer" is beyond me.
I looked around and 100mw green lasers do seem easy to aquire, which is surprising as it was my understanding that publicly accessible "Laser Pointers" had a emission cap of 5mw which is plenty for "pointing".
There are a ton of regulations that have to be followed when putting on a laser show utilizing such power levels.

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[Ralcog]

Gotta disagree with the example though. You must have had some bad experience with focusable lasers or a laser that was poorly manufactured. Green laser >20mw are fairly easy to make out on a while reflective surface flying through the night, and they at most cover the section of the tail. You can even see the dispersion of the laser beam as it travels if the laser is powerful and the night is really dark.

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[michelcolman]

Sun usually only reflects from buildings during the day. At night, the pilot's pupils are dilated more, so their eyes are a lot more sensitive. And yes, lightning does blind pilots from time to time. When flying in the vicinity of thunderstorms at night, we usually turn the cockpit lights up to the maximum to decrease our sensitivity as much as possible. Pilots have had permanent eye damage from lightning strikes at night. And bird strikes on the windshield? Yep, they can be very startling too. At 250 knots, they sometimes even crack the outer windshield layer. Any other questions?

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[michelcolman]

And this is modded insightful? Ever been in a cockpit, or talk to a pilot? Ever even taken a look at an airplane? Notice those big windows on the nose, where the cockpit is? Guess what they are for? For looking outside! Not just on the ground. The Concorde even had a nose that could hinge down during approach, to allow the pilots to see the runway because the nose was pointing up so much more than on other airplanes. Would they have gone through all that trouble if pilots just look at their instruments during approach? Most landings are manual, we do use the instruments for precision but, especially during the final part of the approach if weather is clear, we look outside more than inside. And you may be surprised to know that, on a clear day, while one pilot is flying, the other may very well be looking at the scenery. At some airports, with smaller aircraft flying around, we even HAVE to look around to make sure we don't hit some glider or small Cessna who got lost.

The incidents are real, all over the world, many airports have NOTAMs on it (Notice To Airmen), and in my company alone we receive several Air Safety Reports (reports from pilots) per month on this issue. Recently, one pilot even had to take medical leave for a week because of a black spot in his eyesight that would not go away. Others have been blinded for 10 seconds or so. Good thing there are two pilots on board...

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[arth1]

In short, none of these have been verified, and there's a quite high possibility that the pilots are either lying, having harmed themselves, or were suffering from psychosomatic injuries.

Let's look at the first example. The pilot was 5 miles away from the airport when "struck". As you know, during approach, you can't really see much of the ground closer to you than the airport, but OK let's be generous and say 2 miles minimum distance to any visible ground object.

This 200 mW green laser (which almost certainly was far more powerful than what the kid had, but let's be generous again) has a no-harm distance of 100 m. The minimum distance the pilot was away was THIRTY-TWO times that. The power diminishes by a factor of a square of the distance, so at that range, it's less than a thousandth of the strength needed to cause damage.
Never mind the utter infeasibility of being able to keep the laser on the cockpit glass for more than a fraction of a second, and the dampening effect of the cockpit glass itself.

Again, there are alternative explanations (see my first sentence) which I find far more plausible.

Sure, you can get startled by the eerie light from a laser, but if they really were that damaging at that distance, every soldier would have been outfitted with a laser pointer a long time ago.

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps people who can't deal with momentary distractions shouldn't be pilots? Gods know what they'd do if they ever saw sun reflected from a building, or hit a bird, or saw lightning.

Of course pilots should be able to deal with momentary distractions. Does this mean we need to add more momentary distractions? Especially when they may be landing?

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[purpledinoz]

Apparently at long ranges, the laser beam is quite wide. Also, the laser beam scatters when it hits the cockpit window. So the probability of the laser hitting the cockpit is a lot higher than you think. Also, it only takes a split second of light to distract the pilot. I can easily imagine a pilot getting significantly distracted from a laser. When a plane is landing, the last thing I want is a distracted pilot. Maybe planes and helicopter should have special coatings that will reflect or absorb the green laser light. Catching the people doing this will be very difficult.

Laser Incidents With Aircraft On the Rise

[Culture20]

Reports of popcorn filled houses across the world.

Polarized Glass

[brunes69]

Most laser pointers are polarized. Why isn't the glass in airfraft fitted with a polarizing filter.

The odds of someone's handheld laser (which is subjet to random orientation) being able to replicate the exact polarization of a windshield is very very small.

And that is why...

[Anonymous Coward]

...we can't have nice things.

Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Just arm the airplanes with those smart bomb things. That'll take care of the little bastards.

(captcha: snuffs)

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

The company I work for makes coated lenses for military aircrews with a notch filter that blocks targeting laser light wavelengths and have done so for years. I've known pilots that can tell you about the guys that don't wear them and lose eyesight. Maybe these pilots need similarly coated lenses.

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[freightdog]

Yes, well, we'll just make sure everyone who's going to break the law by pointing lasers at a plane will follow the rule that they do it from a safe distance. Frankly, I find your first sentence ignorant, insulting, and ludicrous Why would someone lie and risk losing their medical certification, ending their flying career?

Question about the 'safe distance'- is that oblique exposure or direct, focused exposure? Do they test on a real human eye? What was the ambient lighting conditions? Does Wicked Lasers have a vested interest in selling their product as safe? In short, I doubt the testing replicated or was designed to mimic the conditions experienced by pilots.The natural reaction when flying (and I speak from experience) is to look at an unexpected flash of light- it might be a strobe from another aircraft. If you're looking directly at the point from which the laser originated and a second beam hits you, your eye will be focusing that light on one point in your retina rather than being exposed through peripheral vision.

You use a convenient example of a distant exposure with plenty of distance for the beam to scatter and be attenuated. Note that the helicopter pilots in Naples were hit at low altitude (500 ft or less) and they were taken off flight duty. If you're not a pilot, you may not be aware of the nature of the FAA. There is no right to a pilot's license- the FAA is authorized by an act of Congress and all certifcates are considered privileges, not something you have a right to. The FAA can revoke your pilot or medical certification at will and there is very little recourse. On the medical side, the FAA can demand exhaustive medical testing prior to approving a medical certificate, and often those will be subject to limitations that effectively end a pilot's career.

All that being said, I agree that the primary danger is not permanent injury or disability but temporary blindness or disorientation. However, I speak from the perspective of someone who flies for a living. Electricians like to lock out power panels prior to working on wiring so that an accidental flip of a switch won't electrocute them; professional pilots also don't like to gamble with their livelihoods.

Bans don't work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever you ban something, only the COPS own them. Criminals that own banned utilies are hindered by Corpus Delecti, not opinions on what property can be owned. Bans only work on regions where the people are either sitting on land they don't own or are in a regulated conduct to another's privilege. Freedom? Liberty? Says who by what threat of violence?

The only reason laws change is because lawyers invent an artificial world animated by adminstrative trustee "Judges" (not judges, but Judges) where money is blood and every object in sight is addressable as an entity just because it is represented by atomic matter in the real world.

Blow it our your ass, because where Dundee was murdered by you felons, Duke Nukem will prevail.

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

"it would have far less of an impact than a quick glance at the sun, something people frequently do."

At night??

Cockpit below = stupid idea

[sjbe]

That's actually a very clever insight. I can't think of a single benefit of having the cockpit on top...

• It is far easier to engineer a cockpit above an aircraft than below. Remember you still have to sit in it and humans are designed to have our feet point at the ground. Putting the cockpit below the plane makes designing a functional landing gear considerably more difficult.
• In practical terms, it doesn't really matter much whether you can see up or down. Except for fighter jets, most cockpits have relatively poor visibility both up and down. It really doesn't matter as much as you think it does.
• Crash landings with a cockpit below the plane are a BAD idea.
• Cameras with displays can be mounted to the bottom if visibility is actually important for some reason. Much easier to engineer than to design a glass bottomed aircraft.

Re:Cockpit below = stupid idea

[tehcyder]

Crash landings with a cockpit below the plane are a BAD idea.

You could always fix wheels to the roof and get the pilot to do a 180 degree flip before crash landing.

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[freightdog]

Perhaps you should have the experience of being lased at night while flying. The effect is not momentary. Reflected sunlight is not coherent and happens in bright ambient lighting conditions, when your iris is already contracted, so the overall effect is vastly mitigated. Most laser illuminations happen at night, when the eye is wide open, and the desensitization of the eye happens before either the blink or iris reflex can limit exposure.

Lightning can do the same thing- it will completely overload your retina and makes seeing anything hard until your eye re-adapts.

Compared to that, most bird strikes are non-events- you only find out when you find a dent or find a few feathers stuck in a seam.

Diffraction

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no way your laser pointer spot is 4-8mm wide at a range of three miles.

\frac{\lambda z}{d}

Plug in the numbers, it's several meters in diameter and probably closer to around 10 m since it isn't diffraction limited.

There must be a solution already

[argStyopa]

There must already BE a solution to this from the DoD, or we'd have simply equipped all of our infantry with green laser pointers to make any enemy ground-attack by aircraft impossible, especially considering that a ground-attack track would be directly at the user, making the targeting of the pilot's eye that much simpler.

Seeing that we haven't done so suggests that there's some sort of glass coating or visor coating that pretty much prevents it.

A Career-Ender for a Pilot?

[justme8800]

I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that it could be a "career-ender" for everyone on the plane.

Re:A Career-Ender for a Pilot?

[gknoy]

Only if both the pilot and the co-pilot are blinded, or if the pilot is blinded while landing. Presumably a couple seconds after he says "Oh, shit!", the co-pilot would take over under normal circumstances.

Narrowband filters...

[cyn1c77]

at 532 and 650 nm installed on sunglasses for one of the pilots. Problem solved.

Aircraft nuisance

[dugeen]

Obviously this behaviour is unsafe, and not to be condoned; but we must remember that many people have suffered years of noise nuisance from overflights. Indeed in some areas constant overflight by police helicopters is a deliberate method of harrassment used against suspects.

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

If an amateur astronomer can get a clear photograph of the space station, an object with an angular diameter of about 50 arc seconds which traverses several hundred arc seconds per second, I think someone in direct line with a helicopter or aircraft on approach to an airport would have little trouble, especially since beam spread on cheap laser pointers is pretty terrible and since windows are thick (as you mentioned) even a tight beam would create a largish bright spot in front of the pilot.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090116.html
http://www.liquida.com/blog-news/15450896/solar-eclipse-oman-thierry-legault/

We can't count in physics or geometry or thick (though transparent) windows to protect pilots from stupid people with laser pointers and I don't think we can retroactively remove all of these cheap devices from stupid people. There are, however some possible solutions:
      - laser profiling: Spectrum, beam stability, polarization and other characteristics of lasers can be characterized and traced to device.
      - laser id, registry and profiling: All new pointer lasers would emit pulses representing its ID pattern every 100ms. When a person buys a laser, their identity is entered into a database along with the laser's pattern code.
        - Dichroic filters on pilots glasses (this is a cheap, easy and highly effective solution which could be available right now)
        - Dichroic filters on aircraft windshield (expensive but it would work)
        - Darwin's laser (Lower the cost of high powered excimer lasers, give away burning infrared CO2 lasers at monster truck events and wrestling matches. Let Darwin do the rest)

- Please do not look into laser with remaining eye.

Re:No! Lasers don't blind pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

"Those risks increase with night vision goggles, which the deputies were wearing Saturday."

What?! Collier county sheriffs should turn down the brightness of their night vision goggles. They're supposed to magnify dim starlight and moonlight into the visible range, they aren't supposed to be able to amplify a laser into something brighter than a laser!

Hello? Aviator Glasses?

[DarthVain]

I mean don't they all wear them all the time?