Someone spoils it for everyone.

[den]

Bugger. I'll never get my green laser now. The TV news said there have been 35 "attacks" on aircraft this year.

Comments

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

Well, your average presentation laser pointer for school or teachers isn't going to cause a fuss, nor will the toy you use to play with the cat. What *is* going to be restricted are the powerful "green" and "blue" lasers that look like a flashlight, and run off several "D" cell batteries.

These things are so big and powerful they actually have heat sinks to keep them from blowing out the diode, and you can't operate them for more than a few seconds regardless.

The laws going into place are meant to restrict the lasers that can blind you for life. Slashdot has a lot of info about it. (http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/21/0340249)

Aside from the "attacks" on aircraft, there's also been a LOT of f***erheads using these things to cause trouble. Dunno what you call them in Oz, but in the UK they're called "Neds" or "Chavs", and they are absolute scum. Happy Slapping-randomly beating someone to death-is a favorite sport, as is taunting retarded kids until they jump off train bridges. (Oddly enough, we don't have such types here in the US, mainly because they know they can be shot, either by their victim or the cops.)

And now they're using powerful lasers to do it all from a safe distance.

I'll tell you what, though?

99.9999999% of the Australian public are going to automagically assume that this ban applies to ALL lasers, and they're going to go absolutely batshit insane every time a kid pulls out a cat toy.

And the really sad thing is that the police will, too.