Sweden proposes banning pointers >1 mW; asking for comments by Oct 4 2013

[Blaster]

Thanks very much that gives me the complete picture ...including the BS on the lasers .Part of the reason I'm building up my laser collection apart from its a hobby is the worry they will ban hand helds full stop forget 5mW i mean no key chain lasers as well.hard as hell getting lasers into Australia U will be where i am soon and you don't want to be here. Remember when there was a rush on buying guns because ppl thought the government was going to put on much tighter controls and ban more types ...same with lasers except the general public go off the media frenzy on laser pointers being attack weapons ...You can carry a high powered hand gun around that will literally blow someone's head off but not have a 25 mW green laser in case you point it at someone or a aircraft ..bloody hopeless .+1 thx


UOTE=Optik Illusion;1241654]This post is being rewritten - I had a horrible first draft

The Government Shutdown here in the U.S is caused by our two parties being unable to reach an agreement on the budget. Recently they have been shutting down things like parks, memorials, and other publicly funded places in an effort to "save money".

In context to my post - The government is currently shutting downs things unrelated to the budget crisis (i.e privately owned parks), making connections where there is none, hoping that the public will be outraged. Even though there is no reason for some of these places to be closed - they close them hoping to turn the public on the other party. I feel this is like what is happening to our hobby of lasers

The governments call kids shining lasers up at the sky "attacks" when in reality they are not. They will make completely unrelated connections with hopes of causing the general public to panic and in a knee-jerk reaction ban them. It seems recently the government will spew whatever garbage out of their mouths that they can in an effort to get more control over the general public. We all know that it is very unlikely, if not impossible for a laser pointer to crash a plane...but the general uneducated public does not. If the government says "Laser ATTACKS" are increasing, it is going to cause mass concern by the general public...when reality that laser attack is some doff looking at stars. If the government wanted to be straight forward about lasers, they would simply say "some kid accidentally shined a laser at a plane". Instead they want to cause mass panic by calling it a "Laser Attack".

That is just my two cents.[/QUOTE]

 

[OrionBLF]

The government is currently shutting downs things unrelated to the budget crisis (i.e privately owned parks), making connections where there is none, hoping that the public will be outraged. Even though there is no reason for some of these places to be closed - they close them hoping to turn the public on the other party. I feel this is like what is happening to our hobby of lasers. The governments call kids shining lasers up at the sky "attacks" when in reality they are not. They will make completely unrelated connections with hopes of causing the general public to panic and in a knee-jerk reaction ban them. It seems recently the government will spew whatever garbage out of their mouths that they can in an effort to get more control over the general public. We all know that it is very unlikely, if not impossible for a laser pointer to crash a plane...but the general uneducated public does not. If the government says "Laser ATTACKS" are increasing, it is going to cause mass concern by the general public...when reality that laser attack is some doff looking at stars. If the government wanted to be straight forward about lasers, they would simply say "some kid accidentally shined a laser at a plane". Instead they want to cause mass panic by calling it a "Laser Attack".

When it's fear - that's phobia
When it's worry - that's paranoia
When it's belief - that's schizophrenia

 

[Blaster]

When it's fear - that's phobia
When it's worry - that's paranoia
When it's belief - that's schizophrenia

while i tend to agree with that no doubt .all tbree in lasers terms are media fed ...i will stock up while i can as i have seen this sort of thing happen over the years. I'm 50 so i really know just what the media can do ...its our hobby but 99.9% of people couldn't care less and assume a kid with green laser equals planes crashing everywhere. Except none have crashed yet not even close, media hype is a very powerful thing. I hate doing the age bit but ive been around a while and over the years watched a number of things i have loved stop be banned because of a small group of idiots .....if you are 50 plus you will know this to be fact.

 

[Spooky]

When it's fear - that's phobia
When it's worry - that's paranoia
When it's belief - that's schizophrenia

When it's reality - that's history

It's far easier to stop a ban than it is to get one reversed, how many governments have any of us ever known that have admitted to being wrong on a decision and reversed it directly?

In 1968 CO2 powered pellet guns were banned here (made firearms) only when another ban came along in 1996 was the decision reversed as appeasement for the newer and stricter ban on handguns in general.

A solitary individual telling lies managed to cause the deaths of 30 million people and sucked in much of the world so convincing a few sheep that all lasers are "terrorist weapons" is a tiny feat of propaganda in comparison.

cheers

Dave

 

[Spooky]

media hype is a very powerful thing.

Yep, "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and if we don't act you are all going to glow in the dark or die of ebola"

cheers

Dave

 

[Blaster]

Yep, "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and if we don't act you are all going to glow in the dark or die of ebola"

cheers

Dave

exactly we all bought the fairy tales the (government) media was pushing and the allies went in ,in long run nothing has changed suicide bombers every few days .that part is fact The media went along and pushed it to higher and higher lvls until the public believed in weapons of mass destruction ..years later oh whoops didn't find any but never mind.I don't want my hobbies taken away from me because of fairy tales of aircraft crashing due to lasers especially if it has not happened once yet.

 

[Spooky]

Same all the way round bro, we went into Afghanistan to get rid of the Taliban who happen to be an "organisation" trained by the ISI, Funded by the USA and supported by the UK while they fought the former Soviets, it all comes about because in all arenas no matter what they are our political leaders all assume they know best and must protect us from us.

But people aren't stupid are they?

Tell Orson Wells that when he had to apologise because a large number of people believed his radio broadcast.

In no way am I anti establishment I'm as patriotic as the best of them but I get royally pissed off with being fed bullshit by the little box in the corner of the living room and being treated as if it's not possible to understand the problems they say we have.

cheers

Dave

 

[Blaster]

You know what I think?

It's like the anti-gun nuts.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Lasers don't blind people, people blind people.

A gun or laser has no brain and cannot do things on It's own.

well yes and you could go on with more similar things. Except the governments ,the media, people in general want to takeaway hand held lasers for a crime that hasn't even happened yet. Forget plane crashes with lasers when was last time you saw on TV person blinded permanently by man with laser in wild laser attack ....but how often do you see on the TV person gunned down by man with 45 semi automatic pistol and killed. I bet the answer is zero on the laser attack and nearly everyday on the 45 semi automatic or other hand gun ...But you can buy hand guns everywhere......thus the problem ...lasers are seen as evil for something that has not even happened yet if ever ( that I'm aware of)

 

[Spooky]

It's like the anti-gun nuts.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
Lasers don't blind people, people blind people.
A gun or laser has no brain and cannot do things on It's own.

Nuclear weapons have also never resulted in a terrorist attack yet, ergo based on the same logic we should all be allowed to build them as nobody has yet died in peacetime from their use.

The only way to beat a ban is with educated statements based around both logic and facts that are testable, if the mode of test has the possibility of causing death then it's effectively an unsupportable argument.

"Guns don't kill people" is a very old argument and in the last 35 years one I have never seen given any consideration.

cheers

Dave

 

[Spooky]

If more people were educated on the fact that lasers CAN be considered a firearm and CAN ruin lives.

VERY efficient way to get ALL lasers banned. As I said, you need a testable argument to stop a ban not conjecture or speculation and certainly not linking lasers to a more dangerous class of item.

A gun isn't a living thing. It cannot load itself and shoot you. It's just like a laser cannot put batteries in itself and blind you.

Same test as before, neither can a nuclear device unless there is human intervention so the same justification could be used for me to build a B63 in my living room.

To avoid bans there needs to be a concerted effort to show what legitimate purposes higher power lasers have, 3D Resin Printing, Distance measurement, Body fluid detection, Location spotting etc etc "I like tha shiny beams innit" doesn't make it.
If I can pull a justification apart and I'm pro laser imagine what the EPA or suchlike are going to do with an army of anti laser experts on side.

cheers

Dave

 

[Spooky]

Lasers could never be banned.

You may want to think again on that one....

You got to be 1 step ahead of the people banning these things.

Oh dear....I've been around a lot of years using lasers for fun and professionally and one attitude I do not want to be associated with is "Come and get it if you think your hard enough"

Educated reason can win out but reading the above organisations like the FDA/FBI will just laugh while they drive away with your lasers without so much as missing a breath.
Having a laser you cannot use for fear of being caught with it is no longer a hobby,federal prison has a way of focussing the mind far better than any laser optics.

Dave

 

[Optik Illusion]

Lets face it - Any government will ban anything for any reason...there doesn't need to be sound logic behind it. It is simply another avenue of power that they will grab as quickly as possible. Arguing or how or why is pretty silly. It doesn't matter if guns kill people, or they don't...that really isn't the point. IMO if we want to stop any type of ban on our hobby we have to prove how safe it is to the general public, before we even begin trying to stop the government from taking action. Luckily, in the US, with a majority of us being armed, there really is no way for the FDA, FBI to come after us for it. If they could, they would have already with guns. Plus, if they tried, a vast majority of the US would go nuts, and we would easily see a rebellion. People are on a hair trigger over here now...all it will take for the whole thing to blow up is something like the government trying to take away more rights. Luckily people in the US being armed, we keep our government on its feet a little bit more. There is even whole military bases (alot of them) bowing that the military would take over and kick out the current administration if they would try to take away the right to guns here in the US.

 

[OrionBLF]

You may want to think again on that one....
Oh dear....one attitude I do not want to be associated with is "Come and get it if you think your hard enough" ...Dave

Aka 'catch me if you can'. I agree with Spooky (Dave) on the downside of this meme. But I do appreciate the effort from HD5830Gamer to clarify the quintessential silhouette of a laser pointer. Can you imagine the challenge for an operator of an x-ray scanning machine staring at the screen of several thousands of mail parcels and travellers' luggage daily? Lasers can be built into all sorts of everyday objects like the avatar from TheLightningStalker.

 

[Spooky]

Everyone needs a good joke here and there.

I agree bro, I've just had a lot of years of different hobbies / works that have been made that much harder by government level interference.
I'm not annoyed at the governments (they just do what I expect of them) what really annoys me is the hoards of sheep that follow it all along and believe everything they get fed. It's an insult to the individual intelligence of the people they spoon feed this crap to.

"We don't like lasers so we are going to ban them" - I could at least respect the honesty in that, I wouldn't like it but I could respect it.

cheers

Dave

 

[Blaster]

Aka 'catch me if you can'. I agree with Dave on the downside of this meme. But I do appreciate the effort from HD5830Gamer to clarify the quintessential silhouette of a laser pointer. Can you the challenge for an operator for an x-ray scanning machine staring at the screen of several thousands of mail parcels and travellers' luggage daily? Lasers can be built into all sorts of everyday objects like the avatar from TheLightningStalker.

Exactly why i bought up big on a pile of known high powered eBay pens .....and yeah try getting them off me. In Australia we used to have Guy Fawkes night ( fire cracker night) gone,BB guns gone, Air rifles gone, etc etc all because of a few idiots ...i could go on with other things taken away because of a tiny bunch of idiots ....

 

[magmabeam]

Won't happen, 1mW's are too common & prevalant to ban, lecturers/architects/kids have them. They might restrict sale/distribution, but other than that it seems far-fetched.