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Man Who Pointed Laser At Aircraft Gets 30-Month Sentence
coondoggie writes "In a move federal prosecutors hope sends a strong message to the knuckleheads who point lasers at aircraft for fun, a California man was sentenced to 30 months in prison for shining one at two aircraft. According to the FBI Adam Gardenhire, 19, was arrested on March 29, 2012 and named in a two-count indictment filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles that said he pointed the beam of a laser at a private plane and a police helicopter that responded to the report."
It's because of idiots like this that we can't have nice toys. Laser pointers get banned and people who buy them get looked on with suspicion. All because some morons think pointing them at aircraft is a good idea.
How about we punish the idiots, and let the rest of us have our toys?
"The helicopter pilot was wearing protective gear and therefore did not suffer eye damage or vision impairment as a result of the laser, the FBI stated."
I have a crazy idea... how about airlines give pilots protective eyewear, and if some bored kid starts shining a laser around, the pilot grabs said eyewear and puts it on?
Authorities may seek to regulate or prohibit the use of laser pointers, but there is a horse that has left the barn long ago: the lasers used in CD/DVD/game players are much, much more powerful than laser pointers. Hardware hackers can collect several dozen old boom boxes, hook up their laser emitters, and thus create very formidable weaponry.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
People like him are making things difficult on all of us laser enthusiasts with their completely asinine behavior.
I am perfectly okay with this.
"WARNING: Do not look into laser beam with remaining eye."
...oh, no remaining eye? Sucks to be you. Or your passengers...
Koans and fables for the software engineer
I want my toys, why ban them in the name of some safety issue. Then only the government can have them. Background checks should work if they are so dangerous. I would like to see why background checks won't work, perhaps the gun owners would be interested also.
We are tossing a 19 year old kid into the system for 2 and 1/2 years over shining a light. Without a doubt he could have caused more harm than he did, but to take away the beginning of his adult life... just seems wrong. Make him do a few thousand hours of community service while on probation will do more good for everyone than teaching him to be a professional convict at this point in his life.
FTFA:
Gardenhire deliberately aimed a commercial-grade green laser at multiple aircraft on that March evening
Also:
The FAA says the increase in annual laser reports is likely due to a number of factors, including the availability of inexpensive laser devices on the Internet; increased power levels that enable lasers to reach aircraft at higher altitudes; more pilot reporting of laser strikes; and the introduction of green and blue lasers, which are more easily seen than red lasers.
People are buying commercial/scientific lasers and using those. Those may be regulated, unfortunately, because of the asshats and ignoramuses out there.
The only issue I have is that this kid, probably non-violent dumb-ass, will come out of prison where he will experience many bad things, and probably learn many many bad things. When he comes out he probably won't be as non-violent any more.
Get a powerful laser. Mount it with a spinning set of mirrors. Put it into a "grenade" form with a time delayed trigger. After spinning it around a room for say 5 seconds, everyone should be either sufficiently blind or at least keeping their eyes closed to prevent blindness.
Sentencing should be for punishment/rehabilitation and not to "send messages."
That kind of shit needs to go away. That's why we have "hackers" getting put away longer than rapists, or issues like Aaron Schwartz.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
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What about shining a laser pointer at a drone? What about shining one at a drone that is 5' over your house?
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Ok this guy did something monumentally stupid which, most certainly should serve as example for others. Done. Now whats with the 30 months in prison? Why must this guy be a felon? Now unable to leave the country, unable to vote in most places, unable to own a firearm.... all for something stupid that, he is unlikely to ever do again.
The punishment fetish in this country really needs to be checked, punishments are totally out of whack with crimes when we have people losing their rights indefinitely over something which, while it could have been disasterous wasn't, and more would have been served (and just as useful an example set) by using it as a teaching moment than by ruining this guys life and making crime one of his best options going forward.
But hey, the harsh punishment crowd can go stroke themselves over it, so someone benefits.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Why not public stockades for 10 days and allow the public to throw old food at him, totrure him, humiliate him, and even give him some corporal punishment?
Why the hell dont we do this anymore to people so they actually learn?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
federal prosecutors hope sends a strong message
I've never understood this message sending that prosecutors/judges/etc go on about.
If I'm going to aim a laser pointer at a plane, I'm not first googling the punishment for it. Nor for any other (potential) crimes.
Who is this message being sent to exactly?
By "sending a message" they are by their own admission, using an unusual punishment.
Sure, this is an interpretive call on the meaning of "unusual" and judges are extremely unlikely to limit their own power by using a broad definition, just as they are unlikely to limit their power by using a narrow definition.
Apparently, California's prison lobby has not been deterred by the budget problems and overcrowding. We have the technology, house arrest for 30 months would be more reasonable.
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Should have jailed the pilot for flying into the laser path. The kid was obviously just point out a star.
i understand that it isnt the brightest to point a laser pointer at a helicopter or airplane but 30 months really? This wont have a positive effect on anyone, chances are they just ruined this kids life just so they could "make a strong point". We need to start looking at what we can do to make things better not just how we can punish someone because they did something we dont agree with. All this is going to do is cost tax payers dollars and ruin a kids life, neither of which i stand behind as a tax payer
If he had played football and raped somebody, he would have received a far more lenient sentence.
"expect that telling people "don't do it" is suddenly going to stop everyone from doing it."
First society is told through the law and articles such as this 'not to do it'. Second, those who persist in the stupidy of pointing lasers at aircraft have the opportunity to enjoy 30 months in jail.
If 30 months in jail isnt a sufficient deterrant then I'm sure that figure can and will be revised upward to allow people to think through the idea of shining lasers at others.
The goal of the law isn't to stop everyone from doing a prohibited action since in a free society people can always choose to behave poorly and risk the consequences that come with that decision.
How did they catch him? It seems unlikely the pilot had such good eyesight as to recognize him from above..
Did he spell his name on the cockpit ceiling or something?
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
Yeah, that'll show him and everyone else! Cause we all know every moron out in the sticks, in the city, living in bunkers, all of 'em will hear of this story, read about the consequences and drop their laser pointers in FEAR of the repercussions. Right. Does anyone honestly believe that by "making an example" of this person that all the other semi-literate (or not) morons will be 1)Aware of this or 2)Changed people because of this? Don't get me wrong, I think the strong sentence is fine for such behavior but expecting this to be some proxy for "preaching the good word of the law" is hopelessly naive in this case. Why not draft an awesome 12 page EULA that all purchasers must check a powerful I ACCEPT box before purchasing? Cause that works so well already...
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
Come now, the problem is not that an idiot did something with a tool which they should not have. I'd be willing to bet that when the first person was bludgeoned to death with a cook pot, some asshole said "ban them all!". Fortunately leadership was smart enough to ignore that idiocy, and we can still use our cookware. And as a side note, people still occasionally get bludgeoned with cookware.
If leadership is allowing stupid ass laws to be passed banning tools because an idiot uses it in a fashion which can cause harm, vote in some new leaders. Don't blame idiots for doing idiotic things. They are acting absolutely normal and as expected. Idiots are not new.
What is new is that a staggering amount of people allow shit leadership to stay in place. The easy and complacent thing to do is to ignore poor leadership and put blame where it maintains a status quot instead of correcting problems.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You might very occasionally manage to kill someone with a laser, but illegal driving kills tens of thousands each and every year (just in the US).
WARNING: Pointing at eyes will cause blindness, Pointing at Land, Sea or Air vehicles will get you jail time.
- I stole your sig.
In a move federal prosecutors hope sends a strong message to the knuckleheads who point lasers at aircraft for fun...
Knucklehead isn't really the right term here. A knucklehead might give you a wedgie, dip your hand in warm water when you're sleeping, give you a noogie, or at worst cooties.
Trying to blind a piot of a commercial aircraft is something entirely different. "Attempted mass murderer" comes to mind.
Lol what kind of idiot gets busted shining a laser at a plane and helicopter? The sentence seems harse, but maybe this will teach him not to be an idiot in other regards in his life..
Can we do the same for people with HID head lights?
This guy pleaded guilty for repeatedly lighting up Navy jets. 18 months and $4k fine.
He was pissed at all the noise. The base was there before he was born.
With our prisons so overcrowded and so expensive to maintain (comes out of all of our taxes), I think situations like these would be better handled with a stiff fine (payable in installments, since the guy is only 19).
Unjustified (i.e. "cruel and unusual") punishment isn't a fetish. It's a display of power. What is a display of power good for? Solidifying one's position of coercive authority, justifying yet even more power, and (pay attention to this) justifying a bigger budget.
Point one.. Not being a fucking pussy, I really hate that the more powerful lasers are banned in the US from Joe 6 pack. I believe even dummies can operate lasers without massive dangerous things happening. Actually I would say this is more of an FCC problem than an FAA... As long as Joe 6 Pack can understand power and frequency and know the dangerous effects and even visualize the math, why not let them buy it? They run argon lasers at shopping malls from time to time, and planes fly through that, while it moves around for a light show.
But then point two...
I almost think there should be a worse sentence, since this idiot aimed it at not ONE but TWO actively flying objects. I mean really if your pointing a laser at a police helicopter, it had better be connected to a gun, or rocket, and it had better be during civil war, with the intent to remove a rogue abusive government like the Constitution says, and the object flying is killing people for no reason and identified as unfriendly, otherwise the guy is temporarily risking all pilot's lives in my opinion from night eye, air collisions, missed landings, etc. A good pilot could manage to keep going and fly around again until vision returns, but it DISRUPTS all the other jet's flight paths. I know I live near an airport, I see them go around when they have IFE's.
Point 2.1...
We are already in a modern electronic civil war v2.0. I am not as sure this is a genuine crime when it comes to drones. I presume it depends on what the drone is doing, and where it's airspace is, is it violating the Constitution? Is it engaged in attacking people who haven't done jack shit? If so, then it is a domestic enemy, no matter who's "name" is at the control and deserves the worst blow-back to those who bless the sortie's evil intent, and these domestic terrorists DO live somewhere nearby.
...are filling up quickly for applicants.
and NOTHING would happen to him...
He'd be arrested, then let out with a 'good telling off', and that would be it. Then he would do it again, and exactly the same thing would happen.
Hell, you can MURDER people in the U.K. and expect to spend less than FIFTEEN YEARS in prison - and our prisons are like holiday camps.
I hope he gets the bjesus pounded out of him while sitting there for what should be 30 years.
This is a nanny state response.
But to keep in the spirit of technology, why don't they make the planes immune to idiocy. For example, the cop in the chopper has glasses which filter the harmful effects of the laser, why not make all the windows on the plane of this material? Problem:Solution NOT Problem:Legislation
In their native applications, CD/DVD lasers are incredibly weak; usually under 1mW. While the diodes can be brought up to higher power by ripping them out and supplying them with proper cooling, laser pointers (especially poorly-regulated imports) are dangerous right out of the box; no hacking needed. If you ripped the cover off a boombox and held down the interlock switch, it's doubtful you could even see it more than a couple of feet away unless the holder had REALLY good aim.
"For doing something dumb (not intending to harm anybody)"
What, precisely, do you think he had in mind when aiming a laser pointer in the cockpit of an airplane lining up for a landing? "Harmless", my a$$.
This was a serious violent crime. Period. End of story. The fact that his crime failed to have the intended result doesn't mean he gets a slap on the wrist.
You're not going to like this, but here it is: multi-year sentences for being a douchebag are a *good* thing, because they protect our right to do fun stuff. If we take it as a given that high-powered lasers are a real danger to aircraft, the government has three possible solutions:
1) Laser-proof all aircraft, which is enormously expensive even if it's technically possible. And who pays for it? You do, either through taxes or airline ticket price increases.
2) Ban all sales of high-powered lasers to the public. No fun science experiments for you!
3) Throw the book at a couple of offenders to discourage people from being douchebags in this regard.
In practice, 1) isn't going to happen. By going with solution 3), we reduce the pressure to do 2), which protects your right to screw around with lasers and have safe, responsible science fun.
Somehow, I don't think the idiots who do this kind of thing read /. much.
This verdict would have a better chance of having its intended effect if the knuckleheads who think it might be a good idea to point a laser at someone got a flyer with their purchase that said "Point it at someone - go to jail."
We are tossing a 19 year old kid into the system for 2 and 1/2 years over shining a light. Without a doubt he could have caused more harm than he did, but to take away the beginning of his adult life... just seems wrong. Make him do a few thousand hours of community service while on probation will do more good for everyone than teaching him to be a professional convict at this point in his life.
Ok, let's put this into perspective. You're driving down the freeway, approaching an overpass, when suddenly you have a burning sensation in the back of your eye and you can't see. As you blink and turn your head, your car goes out of lane and nearly hits another car that honks loudly at you. Thankfully for your kid in the back seat, you weren't going that fast and recovered, but one of your eyes really hurt and has a blind spot that won't go away. Carefully, you work your way off the freeway, wonder if you have to call a doctor.
Now, imagine you are coming in for your first landing as a pilot-in-training. Nervous, but everything's going great, you're in control, when... you get the picture.
Now, imagine you're on that overpass with this 19-year-old you know. You're bored, had some beers. "Check this out," the 19-year-old goes, pulling something out of his pack. "Hi-powered laser."
"What you gonna do with it?" you ask over the sound of cars speeding past, below.
"I'm gonna shine it at cars and planes. You get 'em in the eyes, it fucks 'em up!"
"Uh, really? Does it hurt?"
"If it goes in your eyes, fuck yeah it hurts! Blinds you some, too! I looked at it real quick once and I couldn't see right for hours."
"Uh, dude, you gonna do this on the freeway? People could crash, man."
"Stop being such a punk-ass bitch. Man up and have some balls! Here, watch me fuck up that little plane up there. Yeah, see, I'm gettin' him!" as the plane violently yaws to one side.
The Previous Poster seems to forget that this guy didn't do it once and then come to his senses, like "oh, shit, this has gotta stop". He did it again and again. Either too stupid to understand the real harm/danger he was causing, or knew precisely what he was doing and didn't care, and no thousand hours of service is gonna set that straight (if he was 14, maybe; but he's 19! if he don't know better by then...) Either way, YOU don't want someone around like this wherever you drive, fly or live. Throw away the damn key.
Seriously, Steve O is a "knucklehead" who does some crazy shit. This is something else entirely.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
Pointing a laser at an aircraft, particular one taking off or landing, or at a helicopter is more dangerous than shooting at it with a handgun (you will likely not hit, with a laser it is easy). Even if the pilot is only incapacitated for a few seconds, that can be enough for a fatal crash. And if the laser is strong enough, it may cause permanent blindness and the pilot will lose his/her job.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Just use the goddamn mouse pointer.
I've always been a bit curious about how exactly that phrase should be interpreted in the context of period language. It seems to usually be interpreted as cruel punishments and unusual punishments are banned, but I would have thought such an intent would have been better phrased as "cruel or unusual punishments". The alternative, which makes far more sense to me, is that it's the combination that's banned. Cruel punishments are okay so long as they are not unusual, and likewise unusual punishments are okay so long as they are not cruel. After all I challenge you to name any common punishment which is *not* cruel.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
There are certain forms of social behaviour that go beyond the pale. What about an adult who sexually abuses a young child when they are alone together, because the crime leaves no external evidence? Or the doctor that molests his patients disguised as routine examinations, for the same reason?
You take a gun and rob a store, and you know people will be aware of the crime, and have means of possibly finding you. The guy with the laser was using it precisely because he was convinced he would be an invisible criminal- incapable of being discovered. Just because WE understand the physics and maths of light that travels in a straight line (meaning that the people in the helicopter were literally given the pin-point position of the perp by the laser beam itself), doesn't mean the criminal realized the same.
What I am trying to say is this. Find a criminal who only commits 'invisible' serious crimes (crimes that are not noticed, or crimes where the perpetrator cannot be discovered), and you'll find a person who almost certain does things like rape little children, or sets things on fire as well. These people are very, very dangerous criminal psychopaths.
Discussions about how rarely a laser really endangers an aircraft miss the point entirely. We have a right to be protected from the people that desire to ignore social norms in order to prey on us.
if it happened on a regular basis.
Now you ask "How could the government/corporations make money from this?"
Particular individual, welcome to the Stocks and Pillory, brought to you by Carl's Jr.
He shouldn't have gone to jail. It's a waste of time and money.
He should have been given a hefty fine and community service.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
19 year old kid points a laser pointer at a plane. You pay $50,000. If we looked at it this way our prisons wouldn't be so full.
by lasers every year? less then 5.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
While many (most?) commercial aircraft do indeed have Autoland system, they are rarely actually used. Ask any actual airline pilot about this.
And he was shining a laser pointer, not a flashlight. And shining at the cockpit, not some easier target.
And obviously it was bright enough to notice, as the pilot called it in.
And I doubt it was a mile or two away.
And at night, the micro-scratches in the plexiglass plane windshields, make a laser-pointer hit very dangerous indeed. The pilot isn't going to have burns on his retina, but he isn't going to be able to see out the thing either.
Laser pointers of this magnitude and greater can be used to target aircraft, blah blah blah, everyone has heard it a million times.
They scare you with the thought of a commercial airline crashing with hundreds of passengers...
But really they don't want people having effective anti-drone-aircraft equipment.
There didn't need to be a specific law for that, attempted murder, (attempting to crash the plane) or reckless endangerment, ( risk of crashing the plane), should have been more than enough.
I work with laser daily that have far greater power and focus than the average 5mW laser you can buy in a store. And this report just makes me sad. Sending a guy to jail for something stupid. The pilots could never have been blinded (permanently or even for a short while) with laser of these low power unfocused types. Its basically more dangerous to your retina to look into the sun. The IEC 60601-2-22 for example defines a way to calculate the NOHD http://www.laserpointersafety.com/safetyinfo/safetyinfo/calcs.html Basically this a method of calculating the chance of damage to the eye, based on distance, divergence of the beam, power and wavelength.
Example:EXAMPLE 1: In the U.S., lasers sold as pointers must be less than 5 mW. A typical divergence is 1 milliradian. What is the Nominal Ocular Hazard Distance? The 50/50 injury chance distance?
NOHD (Nominal Ocular Hazard Distance) in feet = (32.8 / 1) * (square root of (0.5 * 5)) = 32.8 * (square root of 2.5) = 32.8 * 1.58 = 51.9 feet ED50 distance in feet = 51.9 / 3.16 = 16.4 feet
Answer: The Nominal Ocular Hazard Distance of a 5 mW laser pointer with 1 mrad divergence is 51.9 feet. The ED50 distance means that if a person is 16.4 feet from the laser and is exposed under laboratory conditions (the laser and eye are fixed relative to each other), there is a 50/50 chance of causing a minimally detectable retinal lesion.
In short, unless the guy was sitting within 16 feet of the plane/helicopter, he has a 50% change of inducing ANY form of damage to the retina. On the other hand, could the laser pointer pose a distraction to the pilot and the pilot could make a fatal error. Sure, but a ringing cellphone might do the same.
laser struck the pilot of the airplane in the eye multiple times and caused him to suffer vision impairment that continued through the following day.
That's consistent with what I know from having three lasers of various power levels. In some areas, readily available lasers are limited to 1mw. Online, you can easily order 50mw lasers, if you live in an area they'll ship to. So some readily available lasers are 50 times as powerful than what you might think of as readily available in your area.
Additionally, green lasers are about 4X as bright optically than red lasers of the same power. So his green laser may well be 200X as bright as your red laser.
Depends on where the attacker is. If the attacker is withing 15 degrees of the runway then the planes movement will have little effect. They will have several minutes to paint the front of the aircraft with the pointer. By wiggling the beam they can paint a larger area of the cockpit with the beam over those minutes. Multiply that by the fact the attacker is targeting aircraft as a hobby over the course of the year.
Billiions of dollars for aircraft that are vulnerable to a laser pointer that costs a few bucks. It's a disgrace.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
No but if shoot laser pointers at the drivers of school busses near a school then I might expect 30 months of prison.
*Daffy Duck voice* ;-)
"You're despicable...."
I'm still imagining the chaos in the package sorting/routing facility!
All that machinery, and two "Extremely Dangerous Magnets"....hilarity ensues.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Also, something like 90% of those takeoff/landing accidents take place during daylight hours. So your point about the laser adding additional stress is another case of "look, there is a dragon at the edge of the world". Not true and just another generic fear tactic.
Thank you. This myth about blinded pilots has got to stop. The worst is a momentary impediment of sight, like glinting sunlight from a mirror while driving your car. No blinding, no retinal damage, no plane crashes...
This is a ridiculous criminal sentence to an overhyped threat that does not exist in reality. I feel genuinely sorry for the idiot that was sentenced. I hope he gets a good lawyer that has this sentence overturned on appeal.
Should be 30 YEARS.
That is one of the most half assed straw men arguments I have seen in awhile. I am an industrial electrician. Do you know how much safety gear I have to wear to do my job? At a minimum I have a hard hat, safety glasses, and gloves on. If I am working on live power I have voltage rated gloves with leather gloves over those. If the power is over 220V and especially 480V or 600V then I'm gonna have to have an arc flash suit on which comes with a nice hooded visor. The highest rated suits look like those shiny silver volcano suits you see scientists wear. Do you know how difficult it becomes to do something so simple as putting a wire under a terminal screw when you have an arc flash suit on? Just because something is inconvienient does not mean you can disregard safety protocols. If I didn't have that gear on and a switchgear decided to blow, I would probably be dead without it (at least burned severely). It's hot, it never fits right, you can't see shit with it on, but I HAPPILY put it on every day.
This is a simple risk assement problem: Is the chance of being stuck by a laser probable? If yes, when struck, is the possiblity of harm probable? If yes then by what amount? If danger is greater than *threshold* then take action to mitigate danger.
If these things are as dangerous as they are purported to be (and yeah lasers can be extremely dangerous) then that calls for the use of appropriate PPE (personal protective equipment). Since the authorities have passed law making this illegal and have prosecuted people for it then you can't say that the danger is negligible and the risk too low. Therefore, pilots should be MANDATED to wear the appropriate safety gear, in this case laser safety goggles, at least during take off and landing. I can be fired for not wearing my gear whether an accident occured or not. Pilots should not be immune from the same OSHA-style requirements the rest of us working stiffs have to deal with daily. And also a lot of folks hate the blame the victim deal but it applies here. If you as a pilot know some jackass could hit you with a laser, cause blindness, or kill you via crash, then why wouldn't the pilot be DEMANDING appropriate PPE? I demand my PPE whenever something doesn't look right or its a new situation that has been accounted for. Yes, that jackass shouldn't shine a laser at a plane, but you see how well legislation is working out on that front, so it's just plain negligence on the pilots fault for not having a backup mitigator which laser blocking filters on the windows or worn goggles would qualify as. Everyone here knows you have to have a backup and if you can't control the primary then you better be able to control the backup. You might not stop little Timmay from shooting you with a laser (cause you can't control that) but at least you have your goggles on (that you can control) and so if he does shoot ya, you won't go blind and kill your passengers. What part of this even sounds bad? Again pilots should be demanding this stuff. Laser safety glasses are cheap, as comfortable as any glasses, and can be gotten in prescription lenses if needed. There are zero logical arguments against the use of them.
Oh and on top of all that, I just want to point out the ridiculousness of your argument in general. They're glasses. A large percentage of the world wears glasses and many of them not because they are blind but either to block sunlight or to look fashionable. Your arguement against them, if valid, would have already reared its ugly head by the drivers on the road, who have a much higher probability to have to react to a dangerous situation, and unlike planes, cars have little leeway for screwing up. A pilot even plummeting to his doom has several minutes to kiss his ass goodbye whilst a driver is sitting a few feet from his potential death. Wearing glasses (and I mean normal glasses, not some BS you'd see Lil John wearing) in no way limits vision to the point that it becomes too dangerous to operate a vehicle. As a matter of fact every state th
Just because you don't know of a solution doesn't mean one does not exist and I modded you Overrated because of that. You ever heard of laser safety glasses? I have had to wear them on several occasions. They in no way limit your vision in any significant way, certainly no worse than sunglasses and which pilot isn't usally rockin a set of aviator shades? Go look at the products offered by Newport or Thorlabs. They make all kinds of laser bandpass filters and such. To my knowledge, even the military is now coating windows of vehicles, planes, and pilot helmet visors with coatings designed to thwart laser weaponry. A technical engineering method of danger mitigation has already been developed that is far more effective than any crime legislation could be. This law IS "overbearing". As many have already said, we already have 1000 laws that already cover this- wreckless endangerment comes off the top of my head. Legislators and lawyers waste time and resources, engineers get shit done.
Your argument is knee-jerk & totalitarian, and therefore invalid (at least in my opinion).
It boggles my ever loving mind how people here are making excuses for this nitwit. HE COULD HAVE KILLED SOMEONE. How hard is that to understand?
I keep seeing you posting this response repeatedly. You are wrong. Laser light is NOT just visible light. That's why it's called a Laser. If it were the same as visible light it would be called a flashlight (or torch if you prefer). There are plenty of laser safety glass models available. Pilots can already buy:
http://nightflightconcepts.com/products/Laser-Defense-Laser-Armor-Aviation-Glasses.html
Your argument has been nullified.
Wait a minute... you are arguing that he intended to "shock the pilots" while they were landing the plane but thought that that action wouldn't have any consequences?
Unless he went with a "diminished mental capacity" defense, indicating he is a certified moron, I don't see how you can argue that "shocking the pilots" landing a plane isn't meant to be harmful.
If he were driving a car, we'd call it reckless endangerment... the sentence seems about right. Not a specific intention to kill, but also an utter disregard for the possibly deadly consequences of his actions.
This punishment is way over the top, bordering on cruel and unusual.
First of all, the pilots are not in danger. Unless we're talking about a new type of laser with a beam that can zig-zag and go around corners, it is never ever going to hit the pilots in the eyes. Helicopters are different of course as most have some kind of downfacing windows.
A bit of green light reflecting around the cockpit is not going to pose any danger either, both because there's a lot of other light sources in the cockpit that's also bouncing light around, and second because most landings today are mostly automated, either completely or as an assistance. Besides, the pilots are probably half asleep anyway due to the horrendous long hours the commercial airlines force them to work these days.
So please relax. This laser-thing is not a big deal. I guess the pilots are bored since they overreact this way. Think about it. A much more potent light source bounce much more powerful light around the cockpit daily, including directly into the eyes of the pilots, but you don't hear them whine about that. It is of course also rather hard putting the Sun in jail for 30 months...
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Reading the article, arguing that he didn't think it would be harmful was indeed tried in court. The court didn't buy it... it would indeed be hard to argue that without a diminished capacity defense
So does this mean Al Queda can bring down the US aviation system with a few laser pointers? Who would have thought we are that vulnerable.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/adam%2520gardenhire%2520facebook.JPG&imgrefurl=http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/04/adam_gardenshire_laser_pointer_aircraft_fbi_arrest_indictment.php&h=373&w=358&sz=23&tbnid=dy8ueOjYjHo89M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=86&zoom=1&usg=__OYfMrtLa0nMnUcvRaQ0-h0qg8ZA=&docid=ooBclu-bymja5M&sa=X&ei=TG1TUbflNYLKiwLvzYGwCQ&ved=0CEwQ9QEwAg&dur=653
gosgog;
Years ago, the Brits had the ultimate punishment, and believe me, perpetrators punished this way never came back for seconds.
THE CAT O' NINE TAILS. lets forget this current "Humanitarian crap" and start using some items from the historical past. It wouldn't Take long to put a stop to a lot of current idiocy in many countries WHEN WORD GOT AROUND!. Laser at Airplanes, Rapes & sexual assaults, child pornography...give 'em a dose of the CAT!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI7Qq1mYQlI
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If laser pointers were banned, my cat would be very, very sad.