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How Governments Are Getting Around the UN's Ban On Blinding Laser Weapons
Lasrick writes Despite the UN's 1995 Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, the world is moving closer to laser weapons in both military and law enforcement situations that can cause temporary and even permanent blindness. Military-funded research in this area continues to be conducted by the Optical Radiation Bioeffects and Safety program, and already "dazzlers" have been in use in Afghanistan. Domestic versions of these weapons are intended for use by law enforcement agencies and in theory cause motion-sickness type illness but not blindness. "But something bright enough to dazzle at 300 meters can cause permanent eye damage at 50 meters, and these devices can be set to deliver a narrow (and more intense) beam."
Used on Navy boats. They manual says "for starting fires", but, of course, anyone that looks towards the fire at the reflected beam is most likely blinded, and anyone can walk in front of it. This is no different. The manual says for dazzling at long distance. "Improper use" or "unintended circumstances" will be the excuse when people start to go blind with any of these weapons.
Last time I mentioned tens of kw fire starting lasers potentially leading to blindness from primary or even greater reflections...people down voted me here.
It's wavelength dependent. visible light will blind people but for the military combat lasers they probably use wavelengths that the eye is opaque to, meaning no focusing on the retina and damage due to minor scatter and reflections, but will still literally cook the eye if directly exposed.
Also, the military type blinder weapons that was developed in the past to intentionally blind had a kilometer+ range. Blindness at 50 meter or blindness at 2km? Is it really a getting around or unintenional consequences(in the same manner that less-lethal weapons can still be lethal)
The Protocol contains a loophole large enough to drive a truck through, never mind some photons:
"Article 3 Blinding as an incidental or collateral effect of the legitimate military employment of laser systems, including laser systems used against optical equipment, is not covered by the prohibition of this Protocol."
As long as the blinding is a side effect (mitigated by "all feasible precautions to avoid the incidence of permanent blindness to unenhanced vision") of a non-blinding purpose(setting things on fire, destroying machine vision/optical sensor gear, 'dazzling', and basically anything else you might feel like using a laser for, it's all legal. That is not exactly fertile ground for any sort of serious arms control, even if lasers weren't comparatively cheap and trivial to build, especially at the modest powers that will really boil your eyeballs but aren't subject to the engineering challenges of aspirational air-defense and antimissile systems.
It gives me no pleasure to say so; blinding is a pretty ugly thing to do; but the Protocol as written is about as effective as forbidding murder; but making it legal to put a bullet through any hat you see, regardless of whether it contains a head or not.
I can shoot you in the head and kill you but I can not just intentionally blind you?
Actually it seems like a simple enough technical problem. When you go to fire the first burst is a range finder burst and then you set the power for the range. Of course this would all be done by the weapon and not the user.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
That is, unless its a rule that our leaders want to be bound by. Ask them about ending marijuana prohibition and, if you manage to get past everything else, they will happily fall back on "but the treaties we have at the UN wont let us do that, so see, we can't".
Its nice to be able to be selective in what rules apply to you and what ones don't, its almost like not having rules at all, except better, because you still get to use them as an excuse when you don't want to do something.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
This plus the microwave weapon that makes you feel like you're on fire for "Crowd Control" - oh, no one would ever use it to "interrogate" someone, I'm sure.
What a sick fucking world we've created, or have allowed to be created by silent consent. Getting tear-gassed in the 60's was all for nothing, we were all just a bunch of idealistic assholes; we shoulda just kept our mouths shut and concentrated an getting rich, then we could be doing the burning and the blinding. What a colossal species fail we are.
I welcome that killer asteroid.
"Life is not magic." Dr. Ron Weiss - "If we don't play God, who will?" Dr. James Watson
After all, you could turn the cops laser right back at him...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's like the sign says, "Do not shine laser in remaining eye."
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Right. But being non-lethal, there is less to discourage cops from using this technology against the "$15 per hour now" marches instead of potentially violent confrontations.
Police are there to protect the public order, not your civil rights. And public order is often defined by the upper classes as not wanting to see a bunch of dirty hippies marching with signs.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yes. That is exactly the rule. Weapons that are intended to injure but not kill are illegal, weapons intended to kill are ok. Injuring someone because you tried to kill them and missed is considered acceptable, because not everyone has perfect aim.
In world war 1, countries invented poison gas, which caused blindness and severe lung damage, leaving huge numbers of soldiers badly injured but alive, exactly when battlefield medicine was advancing enough to cause soldiers who were losing an arm or a leg to be far more likely to survive.
This caused everyone to realize that poison gas was an amazing weapon for destroying the enemy country for the next two generations by INJURING soldiers -- all the 18 year old guys who are blind and have bad lungs from your gas attack go home, and are a drag on the economy for 50 years by being unable to work and on intensive health care... Civilized countries take care of their veterans, so you know your enemy would deal with the cost... but a world war with unlimited use of these weapons causing millions of badly injured veterans would basically cripple the economies of winners and losers alike.
Thus, after the war, everyone decided that before the chemists finished perfecting gas weapons, we should all agree to ban them. Laser weapons for blinding, as soon as those became vaguely practical, got the same treatment. Other, more obscure types of weapons get this treatment too.
One of the primary reasons that the US Military went with a 5.56mm round instead of the standard 7.62mm is because it does not kill, it wounds people more often. Military Philosophy is that if you wound an enemy, it takes 3 soldiers out of commission and demoralizes them. The wounded soldier, a medic, and someone to carry the guy to the medic. Killing someone only takes 1 person out of commission, and will often make enrage their companions.
The convention against certain types of weapons had nothing to do with not wounding someone, it had to do with humane ways of wounding and killing people. This is why it's perfectly fine to stab someone with a smooth bayonet but you can not stab someone with a serrated bayonet, even though death from serrated bayonet was more likely. You can stitch up a wound from one pretty easily, the other is going to leave a big mess that probably won't be closable..
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.