I had not heard discharging from a laser was illegal, why use the word discharge too? They want it to sound more like a weapon, I guess. It can cause harm though, obviously, but when I think of discharge, I think of a substance coming out, light is not a substance, not a piece of lead like discharging a fire arm. That choice of word is unwarranted and obviously used to cause legal harm to the idiot who was using a laser improperly. Issue I have with it is that label sticks, anyone using a laser outside could potentially be arrested for "discharging a laser".
Rule of thumb is never point a laser at an animal, person or locations where either could be hit by the beam. I think there is a third component too, vehicle might be what I'm thinking of and that should include UAV's. Years ago I could have been arrested for pointing at an aircraft, I didn't know it was there, pointing at the horizon you can hit one and not know it is there. I later knew it was there when I saw it's landing lights pointing strait over my house as it was inbound to an airport 15 miles beyond me. So, add that rule of thumb, never point at the horizon, the beam can travel further than you can see an aircraft.
Some folk are using pointers to point at what they believe is a extra terrestrial aircraft, if you are going to join that club of enthusiasts, use an infrared laser pointer so no one can see it, but if you are pointing at a UAV which has a camera that can see IR, you could be arrested for that too and charged with interfering or trying to disable a law enforcement aircraft camera. Shit can happen when you least expect it, be careful with pointers! This idiot should have expected it, he is stupid for two reasons, one is doing it, the other is doing it from home or a location he didn't immediately depart from.