1W Laser for Self Defense in an Active Shooter Situation

[AaronT]

Hmmm...

I could see the use of a blinding laser attached to your rifle... If your pointing the rifle at them your at the justification point to be blinding them (less lethal)...

Maybe 2 mode (non perm blinding mode *strobe nausea* and screw your retinas for the rest of your life)...

Laser alone... I'd want something in the 1000 Watt Plus range...

 

[Alaskan]

i'm not sure if i'd rather be shot dead or blind.

 

[Encap]

.

Hmmm...

I could see the use of a blinding laser attached to your rifle... If your pointing the rifle at them your at the justification point to be blinding them (less lethal)...

Maybe 2 mode (non perm blinding mode *strobe nausea* and screw your retinas for the rest of your life)...

Laser alone... I'd want something in the 1000 Watt Plus range...

Except that there is no justification for blinding people. Less lethal in this case doesn't mean squat, you are still way over the line into depraved indifference territory meaning -- conduct so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant criminal liability.

What you are talking about has been banned from being used by 107 Nations even against an enemy in time of war so.....See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Weapons
The point being blinding as a method of warfare is a superfluous injury and a cause of unnecessary suffering, both of which are prohibited under existing international humanitarian law.

 

[paul1598419]

Also, see post # 115 on this thread on dazzlers. These ideas have been hashed out here so many times before this thread. You'd think people would learn, but some never will.

 

[LSRFAQ]

^^^^THIS^^^^^

Also, though a 1 watt laser strike in the eye would most definitely cause damage to the retina, it would less likely cause loss of all vision in the eye leaving some vision outside the central vision. But, who wants a large black obstruction to their central vision?

More correctly, who is going to pay your legal bills and talk the local prosecutor
out of charging you for using an unusual weapon while not fleeing the conflict?

Local cops here just lost a civil suit for shooting a felon in the back during an active robbery and partially paralyzing him. Even though he's not eligible for parole for like 15 years, he will certainly have 60,000$ plus interest to spend, which is far more then he ever expected from the cash register.

Low power lasers are not a good choice to enter combat with. If you tried to defend yourself with a laser against me, I'm just going to raise my arm to block a direct shot of the beam into the eye , look downwards, and charge at you like an angry linebacker.
I'm not a jock but with my body mass if I hit you low its going knock the wind out of you.

Steve.

 

[droidlaser]

So the following post apparently got me started out with a Negative Rep from RedCowboy - which was not posted for him - it was posted for the OP to help with alternatives better than a laser in an active shooter situation or similar. If that's the way this forum is going to be then I don't need it. When you are trying to help out why would someone give you a negative Rep and include a message or PM on the reason for the negative Rep that has a reference to death. Really ??? My post :

I've quite a bit of info from tactical trainers. First I'd suggest getting out of any state that won't issue a CCW. But if that isn't an option now then you do have the option to just carry anyway - something small enough to be in your pocket with a pocket protector so it doesn't print. Stay out of trouble - run from it and it's very unlikely you will get in trouble carrying concealed but if you find yourself in a situation where there is no escape and your life is in serious danger than it will be better to have a gun than to be killed and with any reasonable outcome at least you will be alive. And in many cases just having a gun can save you without ever having to shoot anyone if it is just some bad guy looking for trouble who thinks he can over power you to rob or do great physical harm or worse. So while you will be taking a small risk in carrying without a permit you can likely prevent a huge problem to yourself or your family. Just make sure you have control of your ego and don't lose it in a situation you could escape from. If you can't do that you may want to avoid carrying. Good to have training and look into the USCCA (United States Concealed Carry Association) also.

I've been getting SPAM email lately touting a laser as a weapon but it's typical BS from clueless spammers just looking to make a quick buck.

Second best tactical item to have is a very bright flashlight ~ 2000 Lumens in a pocket light is easy enough to find now and it is much easier to at least temporarily blind someone with that due to it's much wider beam coverage (and not subject to criminal prosecution like a laser) than a laser which I imagine would be hard to blind someone with before they see what's coming and have a chance to look away. The beam from a green laser strong enough to blind is going to be very noticeable unless you think you can hit them right in the eye immediately and I would think that to be very difficult. Pepper sprays in my opinion are nearly useless and dangerous to you if the wind shifts. Your best weapon is your brain - stay alert and take some tactical training to deal with a threat even if you don't have a gun. Just my 2 cents....

Been on the Internet since the 80's and I know forum etiquette. Just because I'm new on this forum doesn't mean you get to toss crap my way and expect me to take it RedCowboy. And what is the reference to death about ??? Is that a threat? I'd done here - over and out - gone. Hope you are happy with yourself.

 

[Arc]

It completely depends on the speed of your aim. It takes only a matter of miliseconds for a 1W green laser to cause permanent injury at 100 metres so any type of hit on the attacker's eye would change his world instantly and would make it impossible to aim at anything with the extreme flash blindness that would instatly occur.
If your aim is slow and clumsy you'll probably get shot first. As far as my own experience with regular laser pointers I can hit a fly in a split second with ease so my aim is pretty decent. I find that aiming a beam is just so easy. You can see the beam and your brain knows exactly where it needs to go to hit the exact target. If I had a high powered laser I bet I could definitely hit a shooter in the eyes before they manage to shoot me. If we were both in cars making us moving targets it would put things even more in my favour. I would mostly be worried about other people. When using a laser like that in a crowded place you might get the shooters eyes but making sure to avoid everyone else in the crowd won't be at all easy. Same thing goes for shooting guns in crowded places though I guess. Probably even more so.

Also there's so much dumb stuff I'm reading on here. Like people saying that a handheld laser can't possibly cause blindness. Others saying that they can but if you hit the shooters eyes he will instantly know your location and then shoot you. Have you ever used a real gun people? You need to aim them or your chances of hitting a target are virtually zero. How are you gonna aim when you were just hit with the most intense flash blindness you could possibly fathom. Forget flashbang grenades, that thing is gonna incapacitate you for a very long time possibly for the rest of your life.

 

[RedCowboy]

It completely depends on the speed of your aim. It takes only a matter of miliseconds for a 1W green laser to cause permanent injury at 100 metres so any type of hit on the attacker's eye would change his world instantly and would make it impossible to aim at anything with the extreme flash blindness that would instatly occur.
If your aim is slow and clumsy you'll probably get shot first. As far as my own experience with regular laser pointers I can hit a fly in a split second with ease so my aim is pretty decent. I find that aiming a beam is just so easy. You can see the beam and your brain knows exactly where it needs to go to hit the exact target. If I had a high powered laser I bet I could definitely hit a shooter in the eyes before they manage to shoot me. If we were both in cars making us moving targets it would put things even more in my favour. I would mostly be worried about other people. When using a laser like that in a crowded place you might get the shooters eyes but making sure to avoid everyone else in the crowd won't be at all easy. Same thing goes for shooting guns in crowded places though I guess. Probably even more so.

Also there's so much dumb stuff I'm reading on here. Like people saying that a handheld laser can't possibly cause blindness. Others saying that they can but if you hit the shooters eyes he will instantly know your location and then shoot you. Have you ever used a real gun people? You need to aim them or your chances of hitting a target are virtually zero. How are you gonna aim when you were just hit with the most intense flash blindness you could possibly fathom. Forget flashbang grenades, that thing is gonna incapacitate you for a very long time possibly for the rest of your life.

If someone @ 100 meters intends to shoot you...... chances are you won't know it until you are hit.

As for a 1W multi mode blinding at 100 meters in miliseconds... lmfao.
Just because the 10,000 square mm bar shaped spot of your MM green 1W looks small to you at 100 meters ( from your end ), doesn't change physics.

I'm not going to discuss divergence, spot size and pupil size, exposure duration, angle of incidence, blink reflex, squinting, ect.... just know all the factors are compounded with distance, so don't take a dazzler laser to a rifle fight at any real distance unless you want to mark yourself as a target.

Now dazzling/blinding with a 1W multi mode at short range is possible/probable and likely illegal in most cases, but always having the upper hand in the real world.... not so much.

Now suppose you have been practicing your laser quick draw and during an argument at the grocery store with a random stranger over.... what the hell ever.... the person you are arguing with reaches into his pocket for his cell phone..... and you quickly lase him in his eyes thinking he was reaching for a gun.... suppose you lase some punk pointing a plastic gun at you from across the street thinking it was real..... you are responsible for your actions Mr. laser quickdraw and in some cases more so as a homemade maiming weapon is not going to be seen as acceptable the way a firearm is in court, this puts you at the same or greater disadvantage to the element of surprise as if you carried a gun and you will still have to abide by the laws that gun owners do as far as if you live in a Stand your ground State or a duty to retreat State even if you can defend your use of a laser to blind/maim someone..... Big IF.

p.s. I wouldn't find you guilty of anything if you lased an active shooter in public allowing potential victims to escape, even if the obvious bad guy was blinded, but some people might..... that said, if you permanently maim someone without a dam good reason, expect no sympathy from the jury.

 

[Arc]

If someone @ 100 meters intends to shoot you...... chances are you won't know it until you are hit.

As for a 1W multi mode blinding at 100 meters in miliseconds... lmfao.
Just because the 10,000 square mm bar shaped spot of your MM green 1W looks small to you at 100 meters ( from your end ), doesn't change physics.

I'm not going to discuss divergence, spot size and pupil size, exposure duration, angle of incidence, blink reflex, squinting, ect.... just know all the factors are compounded with distance, so don't take a dazzler laser to a rifle fight at any real distance unless you want to mark yourself as a target.

Now dazzling/blinding with a 1W multi mode at short range is possible/probable and likely illegal in most cases, but always having the upper hand in the real world.... not so much.

Now suppose you have been practicing your laser quick draw and during an argument at the grocery store with a random stranger over.... what the hell ever.... the person you are arguing with reaches into his pocket for his cell phone..... and you quickly lase him in his eyes thinking he was reaching for a gun.... suppose you lase some punk pointing a plastic gun at you from across the street thinking it was real..... you are responsible for your actions Mr. laser quickdraw and in some cases more so as a homemade maiming weapon is not going to be seen as acceptable the way a firearm is in court, this puts you at the same or greater disadvantage to the element of surprise as if you carried a gun and you will still have to abide by the laws that gun owners do as far as if you live in a Stand your ground State or a duty to retreat State even if you can defend your use of a laser to blind/maim someone..... Big IF.

p.s. I wouldn't find you guilty of anything if you lased an active shooter in public allowing potential victims to escape, even if the obvious bad guy was blinded, but some people might..... that said, if you permanently maim someone without a dam good reason, expect no sympathy from the jury.

They make charts on this stuff you know. A 1W green laser causes permanent eye damage up to 150m.
Now go see the manual on the US Army 9mm pistol and look at the mechanical effective range. It's 50m.

Your comment "dazzling with a 1W multimode laser at short range is possible" is absurdly proposterous. You obviously completely underestimate how dangerous these things are and I seriously hope you don't own one. No one should even be able to buy one because of the ocular hazard they present.

"If someone @ 100 meters intends to shoot you....... chances are you won't know until you are hit"
1st of all we're not talking about them getting the drop on me at 100 meters. It's about an active shooter that gives away their intentions and doesn't have their focus on you until they get completely flash blinded at which point they're likely gonna react like this based on my experience defending myself with a mere LEP light. They're gonna instantly close their eyes and look down at the ground for the next few minutes wondering what the hell just happened. That just a flashlight and the distance was over 40m. I was being aggressively approached by 3 thugs at night. When they saw the reaction of the guy who received the light they all bailed. BTW I'd never point an actual high powered laser at someone's eyes even for self defense, it's just a hypothetical. I understand the dangers unlike yourself apparently. I'd feel like absolute crap knowing that I permanently destroyed someone's vision.

Secondly, at 100m depending on the type of firearm, the average shooter is going to have about a 1% chance of hitting you in a real world situation. Even at the firing range with a long drawn out aim only highly skilled shooters can hit human sized targets at 100m with a pistol.

Now rifles are another story. They can be accurate to well over 1000m but in real combat situations accuracy tends to be poor over just 100m. Having said all that I would still run for the hills in either situation unless I had no other choice but to try and blind the attacker. Assuming I had a high powered laser to begin with that is.

Good chat brother.

 

[RedCowboy]

They make charts on this stuff you know. A 1W green laser causes permanent eye damage up to 150m.
Now go see the manual on the US Army 9mm pistol and look at the mechanical effective range. It's 50m.

Your comment "dazzling with a 1W multimode laser at short range is possible" is absurdly proposterous. You obviously completely underestimate how dangerous these things are and I seriously hope you don't own one. No one should even be able to buy one because of the ocular hazard they present.

"If someone @ 100 meters intends to shoot you....... chances are you won't know until you are hit"
1st of all we're not talking about them getting the drop on me at 100 meters. It's about an active shooter that gives away their intentions and doesn't have their focus on you until they get completely flash blinded at which point they're likely gonna react like this based on my experience defending myself with a mere LEP light. They're gonna instantly close their eyes and look down at the ground for the next few minutes wondering what the hell just happened. That just a flashlight and the distance was over 40m. I was being aggressively approached by 3 thugs at night. When they saw the reaction of the guy who received the light they all bailed. BTW I'd never point an actual high powered laser at someone's eyes even for self defense, it's just a hypothetical. I understand the dangers unlike yourself apparently. I'd feel like absolute crap knowing that I permanently destroyed someone's vision.

Secondly, at 100m depending on the type of firearm, the average shooter is going to have about a 1% chance of hitting you in a real world situation. Even at the firing range with a long drawn out aim only highly skilled shooters can hit human sized targets at 100m with a pistol.

Now rifles are another story. They can be accurate to well over 1000m but in real combat situations accuracy tends to be poor over just 100m. Having said all that I would still run for the hills in either situation unless I had no other choice but to try and blind the attacker. Assuming I had a high powered laser to begin with that is.

Good chat brother.

Your ignorance is astounding..... you must be trolling.

Look at the chart here, the NOHD on a 1W 532nm DPSS laser is 149 meters, a DPSS...... not a multi mode direct and that's 2.5mw per sq. cm which will not cause eye damage, it's a very conservative rating.

I was thinking about how well I make head shots at 100 meters with....any of my rifles.

I said possible/probable and likely illegal in most cases........ go read what probable means.
I have built far more dangerous lasers than anything you have bought.

Wha.... a 1% chance of someone with a firearm hitting their target at 100 meters...... Where did you get this erroneous information ? I hit 12oz coke cans with 9 out of 10 shots at 100 meters on Iron sights, with optics it's close to 100%...... Were you reading a scorecard from some visually impaired target shoot ?

Uggg ..... I feel my IQ slipping just reading what you wrote...... Good lord.

p.s. It's important to always exercise great caution with lasers, but the idea that your 1W MM greenie will cause eye damage @ 100 meters in milliseconds is absurd....... but again, that doesn't mean people shouldn't be extra careful as distraction hazards alone can cause secondary damages ( vehicle crashes, falls, ect... ).

 

[ChrisWhit]

Just to meekly slde my head in, yeah, at least for me I think this kind of topic is really interesting food for thought(read: hypotheticals) and that's really about it. It's like the kind of thing you would sit around a campfire and rattle on about while sipping your beer, lol.. But yeah, no way in hell am I stuffing my 8 watt laser in my pocket. But it's a kinda neat, satisfying chuckle to know that, yeah, this thing could be used to really change the outcome of a situation where you would have likely been murdered.. ended, snuffed out.. or even worse..etc.. Legal issues be darned. You could have those issues with guns too.

As far as a last resort tool for self defense(which I think is the whole hypothetical point of discussion), I look at it like this: If someone is close enough to me for me to fry their retinas with a multi mode laser, I would have pretty much determined that they are indeed about to kill me or worse(mistakes and misjudgments aside- also quick draws happen with pistols). So, I think the point is that the blinding is really a possible available first move in a series to put YOU back in control if you dont have a proper weapon. Just like with a gun, you shoot to take them down so they're no longer a threat.. they'll be injured or even bleed to death in that case. Possibly even crippled for life even.. But hey, that"s the price they pay, the risk they chose to take,, You blind them to incapacitate them just long enough to get away..

When you go out and intend, and plan to kill completely innocent strangers, here's a another little thing to think about in 2024, one of them might try and put your eyes out with a laser beam.. just saying.. That could happen. You threaten someone's life, expect the possible consequences.. Here's just another one to add to your list..

 

[Unown (WILD)]

Yeah good point. If they come at you with full intentions of harming or even killing you they forfeit their right to safety.

 

[paul1598419]

The problem with that idea is it becomes incumbent on you to prove they intended to cause you mortality. Otherwise you are the aggressor. That can be a high thing to prove. Many states won't allow even for one to use a gun if they can flee. And as LSRFAQ pointed out these are not even allowed to be used in war as they cause irreparable damage and suffering against the Geneva Conventions.

 

[Unown (WILD)]

Good points also Paul good points also. I can see why it would be difficult to really determine intentions in certain circumstances but I'm sure there are some where the intention is clear as crystal as well. Potential threats and combat situations can be tricky in the eyes of the law but I think it's also taken into consideration that it is a stressful one and not everyone will perform with correct reasoning while in the heightened state. Fear often causes someone to panic leading to illogical decisions.

 

[smallfreak]

Despite of the theoretical concepts of such a device, we all should be aware that the answer to uncertain times is not "more weapons".

Otherwise, the safest countries in the world would be the ones with the most weapons around. Are they? No. For a reason.

Engaging any weapon dramatically increases the possibility getting attacked. Mainly because someone suddenly might call YOU "the bad guy with the weapon".

And it has a reason too, why army gave up on developing a laser weapon after dumping billions of dollars. They just don't work at the intended distance and instant.