I'm just going to throw my two cents in here. Please note my views do not represent the views of Laserglow!
I've been fairly involved with all of this for the past few weeks and this is what's going on. As you've seen in this thread, the CFR has long since stated that Surveying, Leveling and Alignment (SLA) lasers are limited to Class IIIa. For pretty much forever up until now, this was limited to lasers in the kind of equipment you'd expect: surveying equipment, levels with lasers built into them, and so on. But recently, the FDA has decided that ANY battery-powered laser is considered a SLA laser. No matter what it's intended purpose is.
We say: "But we use them for pointing!"
They say: "It's an SLA laser"
We say: "But we use them for bird abatement!"
They say: "It's an SLA laser"
We say: "But scientists use them in laboratories!"
They say: "It's an SLA laser"
We say: "Even you, the FDA, have purchased these lasers from us."
They say: "Well we can't anymore because it's an SLA laser"
So the FDA simply is refusing to see this in any other way. We have looked for loopholes, we have looked for excuses, they're just not having it. Every single package containing a >5mW battery-operated laser destined for the USA has been seized by customs and returned to us. It doesn't matter if it meets the safety requirements or not - if it's Class 3B or Class 4, and it runs on batteries, it's not getting through.
Of course, this is being done to stop irresponsible or ignorant people from buying high-powered lasers and using them to cause public harm. And yes, a particularly knowledgeable or dedicated individual could use a lab laser plugged into an extension cord in their driveway or rig up an inverter with batteries. But simply preventing high-powered lasers from entering the USA will be enough of a deterrent that most people would give up on their dreams of owning a cool laser. Note that the people reading this on this forum are generally not the people that the FDA is targeting. They're targeting the 14 year old kid who used his dads credit card to by an Arctic and then shined it into traffic. They're targeting the 20 year old high school dropout who wants to buy a laser he keeps hearing about on the news because it looks really cool. They're targeting the people who contact companies like Laserglow and want to buy a laser, literally, with malicious intent ("I hate my neighbor so I want to blind him with a laser, which one do I buy?"). And frankly, this is a pretty good way of stopping those people from getting those lasers.
I agree that there should be some kind of certification or license you can get that will allow you to buy lasers. A laser license, so to speak. But there isn't enough demand for these products for it to be worth the cost of implementing such a system (as far as the US Government is concerned). Currently your best hope is to fill out a variance application and submit it to the FDA (which is a nightmare, by the way). But you have basically no chance of it being approved unless you are working with law enforcement or the military.
I don't know what the situation is with other vendors. The FDA has been trying to shut out Wicked Lasers for some time now, and it seems that CNI also has been visited by the FDA. I don't think CNI will even ship those lasers to the USA anymore, and if they do they're almost certainly going to be seized and sent back. Australia has already banned laser pointers over 1 mW. Germany banned them too. Canada has already banned the sale of them to private citizens and it looks like the EU is currently pushing these laws through as well. It is a sad time for the laser hobbyist.
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