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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

Why wont me dad let me buy a laser pointer

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Mar 25, 2012
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hey, I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask but I want a laser pointer to tape onto my air soft gun so in wars (I'm 13) I can use it. I secretly have a laser pointer but I cant use it on my gun because if he sees it hell flip shit. is there any way I can convince him? I said his reason was dumb and the pointer I wanted to buy was so low powered it would not damage an eye if pointed just for a few seconds.
 





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Just obey the rules.

By the way...
Any laser (especially those >5mW) should not be used to point at people.
Even the cheap "5mW" red lasers you can get from PetCo can output almost 15mW which IS enough to cause eye damage.

This has been a public service announcement brought to you by PetCo.
PetCo... it's where the pets go.
 
Joined
Dec 11, 2011
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I remember enough of my teenage years to understand the thought process that went on then but have gained enough wisdom since then to look back and realise just how obsurd that very same thought process was.

I get it, I do. What you don't understand yet, and won't until many years later when you are an adult, is that parents are not some force to be circumvented, negated, or rebelled against for the sake of asserting your idea of independance or self definition or your emerging need to be independant.

Re-read that and take it in, I promise you if you do, you'd thank me years down the line. I know I'd thank someone now if they said it to me when I was that age and I took it in. I was a pretty well behaved kid, but I did whatever I wanted to regardless of what my parents said. I'm just lucky I never wanted to do anything truly self destructive or dangerous. That being said I had abusive, negligent, manipulative drug addict idiots for parents and went without more often than not. That is besides the point though. If I knew then what I know now I would have behaved a lot differently. You can get more out of your precious years as a teen by working with your parents instead of fighting them and going behind them, even if they were terrible like mine.

Respect your parents, respect them as in think about and appreciate all the little unseen / unsaid things they do, or have done, to make your life possible and to maintain how it is. Think about how you don't have to get up at 6am every day and go to work for 9+ hours at a piss soaked job for minimum or subminimum wage. Think about how they provide a place to live, clothes to wear, food to eat, and stuff to get enjoyment out of for you. Think about what you would do if you got up one morning and they and all your other family - everyone you knew - were gone forever. Think about what you would do at that point to have to provide for yourself. Yes, school sucks balls, but it's better than having to work minimum wage with no hope of bettering your situation just for enough money to live on instant lunches and ramen noodles and sleep on a rotting old moldy mattress in a shitty hole in the wall apartment that takes every last cent you earn. You get to go to school and not deal with all that because of them. You have a chance and hope of living a decent life because of them.

Parents don't ask much; all they want is pretty much just your respect and to do your best at everything you can. They may not show it but they care about you, that's why they're such a huge pain in the ass all the time.

If you want something from your parents (that thing can even be an OK to do/get something) work with them on it. Take the initiative and show them you appreciate them and respect them and are willing to work for what you want. Behave, do your best (not necessarily do well, grades aren't as important as trying your hardest) in school, and fully research anything you think you want or you think you want to get in to. If you work towards it they will trust you, and then you gain freedom without having to make any real sacrifices for it. The hard part is not betraying their trust, which seems like the easiest road to your goal of getting what you want, but it will bite you in the ass. It will take time, be patient, it will be worth it. When you have their trust and they know you respect them and appreciate them you will be able to convince them to let you work for what you want if you can prove it is not going to harm you or anyone else and that you fully understand it and are ready for it, no matter what it is.

You've already gone behind them and potentially put yourself in danger. Get rid of the laser you have, you can always get more later on. Rebuild their trust and don't betray it! Then present your case in a well thought out and calm manner, and you'll be surprised... they usually say yes.

As it stands now you're risking being found out and you'll only dim what little bit of trust in you they have. Convince them to say yes by pressuring now, and you'll have gained nothing but a cheap laser pointer you may grow tired of soon. Work at doing the right thing like I said above, and you'll have not only gained the laser you want, but an open channel to get whatever you want in the future AND make them happier/nicer at you.
 
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Joined
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hey, I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask but I want a laser pointer to tape onto my air soft gun so in wars (I'm 13) I can use it. I secretly have a laser pointer but I cant use it on my gun because if he sees it hell flip shit. is there any way I can convince him? I said his reason was dumb and the pointer I wanted to buy was so low powered it would not damage an eye if pointed just for a few seconds.

You can't have one because.......he said so.

life sucks, and then you grow up and it sucks more.

You don't need one for airsoft because that implies you're going to be pointing it at people.
 
Joined
Dec 27, 2011
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hey, I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask but I want a laser pointer to tape onto my air soft gun so in wars (I'm 13) I can use it. I secretly have a laser pointer but I cant use it on my gun because if he sees it hell flip shit. is there any way I can convince him? I said his reason was dumb and the pointer I wanted to buy was so low powered it would not damage an eye if pointed just for a few seconds.

Not many people here are gonna tell you this because it is a big secret... But your parents are idiots. They are going to get stupider and stupider for the next several years. By the time you are 15, you will be surprised they can tie their own shoes.

And you just KNOW that they were never kids themselves. Well, we know they were, but YOUR parents obviously can't remember what it is like to be a kid. And even though you are super cool, you must be some kind of genetic miracle because there is no way your parents were cool.

Plus they seem to have this ridiculous attitude that just because they go to work and provide for everything you have and do, that they somehow should have some input in what you can and cannot do.

Some parents even think they know what it is like to be a teen, but of course they don't. It has probably been 20 years or more since they were your age and they don't know what it is like now.

And they can't possibly love you and care about you and be trying to do what is best for you. I mean, sure - just a few years ago they were taking pictures of you and showing them off to anyone that would listen and wiping your butt every time you crapped yourself, but they don't care about you now, right? Cause if they did, they would let you do anything you wanted!

But then, something miraculous is going to happen. Sometime between 20-30 years old - depending on how intelligent YOU actually are - your parents are going to get smarter. It is almost like they started taking smart pills or something. Suddenly, you start to wonder that maybe, just maybe, they weren't as dumb as you thought when you were a self-centered teen who thought the world revolved around what you wanted to do.

And then, if you make it to this point, you will have your first child. It will be like a switch flips in your brain. You will fall instantly in love with this screaming, crying, peeing and pooping little ingrate that doesn't care about anything but itself.

And miracle of miracles, in a year or so, that little beast will begin to smile at you and soon will worship the ground you walk on. You will be the coolest, most amazing parent in the universe, along with your wife.

Enjoy it, you might get 5-10 years of that if you are lucky.

Then one day your punk-ass 13 year-old is going to want a plasma ray gun that can eliminate all life on earth as we know it (Using Moore's law here) and time will stand still as your travel through a memory tunnel back to this day many years ago when you thought your parents were fools because they wouldn't let you burn your friends eyes out with a laser.

If you have half a soul, you will realize how awesome your parents were, not to have just taken you out back, hit you in the head with a shovel and buried you in the woods and moved to another state.

That's just my take on it.

The short version is that it isn't a real good idea to put lasers on things you are going to point at friends. Your parents are right, you aren't ready for it yet.

Good luck!
 
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I'd +rep ya tsteele but it wont let me yet. Thanks for the resonant push.

I swear there has to be some neurochemical imbalance that kicks in at 13 and gets repaired at 23ish. I can't fathom any other logical explanation. It's like an undiscovered enzyme, "stupidase" if you will, kicks on and disables most of the higher brain function. Frankly I'm astonished our ancestors survived in the wild with this. No offense to the OP, of course. Every single one of us goes through the brain dead stage I'm referring to.
 
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The long and short of it is that it is dangerous to do what you want to do. You're not going to get any sympathy on this forum. Your dad is right. How would you feel if you blinded someone for life because you wanted to look cool with a laser taped to your gun?
 
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One thing I do want to point out to the OP, technically speaking, a true 1mW laser might be ok for this - maybe. But as others have pointed out, a LOT of the supposedly <5mW lasers that are sold are big fat lies.

They just build them cheap with no quality control and some are 60mW and some are 3mW. Most of them are brighter though, because they know that if some kid gets a true 5mW and another kid gets a 59mW laser - the kid with the true 5mW is gonna want the bright laser and order it. And he's gonna tell his friends to order the BRIGHT "5 mW" laser.

And no one is really checking them at all. You gotta get crazy high wattage before the FDA steps in and they are too busy looking for pain pills to worry much about a 50mW laser here and there!
 
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You gotta get crazy high wattage before the FDA steps in and they are too busy looking for pain pills to worry much about a 50mW laser here and there!

The one they bought from me was only 87mW. They weren't too busy to send two special agents from Kansas City to my work to find me.
 
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That sounds like an intersting story... Who do they use for enforcement? Secret service? Is the story posted elsewhere on the forum?

Isn't it great that they hassled you over a <100mW laser yet they do nothing about the oodles of 1+ watt lasers out there. And we pay for that...
 
Joined
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That sounds like an intersting story... Who do they use for enforcement? Secret service? Is the story posted elsewhere on the forum?

Isn't it great that they hassled you over a <100mW laser yet they do nothing about the oodles of 1+ watt lasers out there. And we pay for that...

the two guys were from the FDA's criminal investigations unit in KC, MO.
They were sent by Dan Hewitt from the FDA's center for devices and radiological health

Hence why you don't see me selling lasers.
 
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When I was 13 I thought I would die sif I didnt get a Daisy BB gun.

Said I was only going to shoot at paper targets-- I lied.. a few starlings and sparrows lost thier lives thanks to me.. Then one day I shot a bird that I didnt get a good look at.. turned out to be a cardinal--the image of that bright red bird flopping about on the white snow-- blood every where is etched in my brain. SHAME on me! My folks were right.. I was far from ready to own a BB gun... today its a laser-but not much more has changed.
 




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