You guessed it, another NBC nightly news laser report

Watching the news right now and another story of 30 laser to airplane strikes last night. They said there are usually 10. 20 years and or 1/4 million fine if you get caught and convicted. Said it's usually teens to early twenties who just got a new laser or looking for some fun or just against authority. Getting worse and worse. Don't know if the other channels reported or not. MORONS!!! Tired of these idiots putting others in danger. And people wonder why we are so harsh on them when it's even hinted at. Too bad. This stuff is some of the worst kind of foolishness.

Link Please?

Haven't looked for one as I didn't read it. Watched it on tv as it was reported on the big main nightly news report. Would have to look for it.

I was trying to type while watching it and this is a short of it as I don't see the long version that Lester Holt actually reported:

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/short-take/video/by-the-numbers-aircraft-laser-tags-on-the-rise-485603907785

Again, this is the short version that didn't air.

Here's another one.


Alan

I'm just so sick and tired of seeing another report on the evening national news of either lasers or drones

It really comes down to parents handing their kids some thing that they do not understand. Then you get the college drunk crowd that are total IDIOTS I bet that is a large part of that

Since you mentioned drones, have you seen the video of the drone that has a pistol mounted to it and they shoot it about 6 times!

Pman said:

I'm just so sick and tired of seeing another report on the evening natioal news of either lasers or drones

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vortish said:

It really comes down to parents handing their kids some thing that they do not understand. Then you get the college drunk crowd that are total IDIOTS I bet that is a large part of that

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Sometimes that college drunk crowd aren't idiots but only act like idiots. As technology advances more and more rapidly there's no telling what people will be able to buy or build. I don't want to get off topic on guns but this was posted today in the gun discussion thread and is a good example of what I am trying to say. Am all in favor of owning guns, but not mounting one on a quadcopter. Honestly I am more worried about government drones, but this is worrisome.


Alan

Edit: I see Laser Chick was thinking the same thing, this is the video she is talking about.

Pi R

Ya its like adding high powered lasers to drones. As you stated it the college people are acting like idiots well that may be true but in some cases it is they are idiots

This senseless behavior seems to be reaching a quite insane level.

Not much we can do other than attempt to educate people who come to LPF about how seriously wrong, stupid, and criminal pointing a laser at aircraft is.

I posted a link in the general section.. my bad I should have posted here, but I wanted everyone to see it. This section gets overlooked. Imagine that!!
But its all over the news!
At work I'm known as the laser nerd! So when this happened everyone at work was joking "I heard about you on the news lastnight/this morn!" HAHA... turd nuggets this is serious!!

Encap said:

This senseless behavior seems to be reaching a quite insane level.

Not much we can do other than attempt to educate people who come to LFP about how seriously wrong and criminal pointing a laser at aircraft is.

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I don't even no how much that would help.. I feel that when its reported on national news outlets it just gives the idiots that did it more of a reason to keep doing it and now they got away with it, with national attention. Also it puts ideas into more and more kids.. Restrictions wont help and depending on who reads the warnings might get a better idea (in a sense) that once you start putting in all the different classes of lasers and power difference's when some don't no how strong certain lasers are, will make them want to buy a more powerful greenie. and now they have all the info they need to commit the crime.. just my opinion. probably sounds dumber to you than to me ha. In all honesty it comes down to common sense and the maturity of the handler. We as a laser community can only try and educate newcomers and weed out the ones with bad intent or showing signs of bad intent.

Its OK to weed out those with bad intent as long as it's very clear that's what they are after but we have to be careful as so many people come here at first just because they heard you can pop a balloon, light a match or burn plastic. This forum isn't like others that talk openly about anything they care too and let's be honest, how many of us have actually read EVERY single safety and forum rule and then expect someone new to read them. There's a LOT of information here. I'm all for letting someone "have it" when appropriate but in most instances we need to give a warning first about what is not appropriate to talk about and then it's pretty obvious by how they react to it whether they need the boot or not.
When I first joined (11/12) this forum felt so much more alive and besides for one specific troublemaker we all helped each other and it was much more friendly. There weren't so many diodes to choose from and owning a Dragon Lasers 1W Spartan was still pretty awesome even though it didn't focus. For many of us that was our first really high powered unit and I think I paid around $400. Now you can buy or build a 1W for $60 just 2.5 years later. We've lost some of the wonder of it all now and so much is taken for granted. Although most electronics are like that now one thing hasn't changed with lasers. They are inherently dangerous.
It's great that it costs so little for a higher powered laser but not so great that so many joining now want to jump right into them with little or no experience handling a much lower powered unit first. I know I am not the only one here that owns high powered lasers that just sit in cases. It's like buying hand guns verses a bb gun for someone in a residential area. You can have some fun shooting targets on your property but are you really going to take a hand gun out and do the same thing? Call me paranoid but I rarely take a cheap overspec 532nm with a decent beam outside anymore. With all the bad press I have to be concerned with someone reporting me even though I'm doing nothing wrong.
Someone could make trouble for you very easily. This isn't just getting into the age of "big brother is watching" as WE are also big brother. What cell phone can't take pics or videos. If I had a nickel for every news story I've seen involving them. I'm not into all the conspiracy stuff as I'm not going to let it all govern my life but I will say that things are going to get worse for the world as the rampant need for spying technology goes up. More and more "watching" will be done for the sake of good which will just end up making everyone more paranoid which will make things worse as our freedoms are chipped away.
Must be nice for a laser enthusiast to not have any airplanes or people in your area

This post was meant as conversation and not to get anyone worked up. I'm just talking
Be safe and try to protect the freedoms we have as long as possible as we have a long hard road ahead of us.

Getting notice on GMA too: https://gma.yahoo.com/11-planes-str...-airport-134408230--abc-news-topstories.html#

Mixed emotions right now, angry, sad, worried for the future of hand held lasers. The government will probably push for an all out ban on all hand held lasers over 2mW but that doesn't work. Just look at drugs or all the restrictions they have on firearms and it does not work very well at all. I see how people feel who have large "dangerous" dogs like pit bulls or rottweilers. 99.99% of the time it is the user or trainer.

"Pilot Has Blurred Vision After Planes Are Struck by Lasers", I have a hard time believing this. I remember we have seen reports like this before a couple of times in the last year or two claiming eye injury. If there's any truth to this then some of these lasers are very expensive 1W+ green lasers. I hope these incidents are just kids being idiots, I hope we don't have real terrorists out there doing tests to see if they can really blind the pilots. If a plane crash is ever caused this way then the war on terror is going to escalate to a new level. It's unfortunate it's getting so much press.

Alan