Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Ward
There are no good reasons to ban lasers....Just Media hysteria and ignorance. Even after some 50,000 reported events of "tagging" of aircraft there has not been a single safety consequence. I guess that number will eventually climb to an order of magnitude more, still with a null result. Might as well ban pink elephants while you are at it.
That said, lasers that are of the non hand-held variety, and often vastly more
powerful, are oddly, not banned, nor require a weapons permit. Cheesh!
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I agree Peter, however, I wonder how many aircraft have had spotlights shone on them? That would be far more dangerous that a laser would ever be. Your a pilot, so has this ever happened? There are very serious consequences for any act that endangers an aircraft and there should be a stronger community education program. But then, that just might give some moron the idea to do just that, such are the foibles of the human mind.
Although licences for large lasers is not required in WA, Health Department approval is, according to the act, as any laser over 1mW requires approval, although it is quite legal to sell lasers over 1mW, go figure. Mind you, as far as I am aware the Health Department doesn't enforce these rules anyway.
Fortunately, common sense prevailed in WA whereas a laser is not a banned weapon but is a controlled weapon instead (caught with one without a valid reason, defined by the Act, results in very stiff penalties). This didn't come about easily and did require some lobbying of politicians, for which I did most adamantly. Fortunately I have a very sympathetic local MHR.
It would have been better, as Jay had mentioned, to have put these under firearm laws, as most lasers above 10mW are weapon sights anyway. Midland Gunmart sell 40mW lasers with weapon attachment rail over the counter.
On your comment on the non hand held (industrial) lasers, perhaps these are general much larger and considerably more expensive with significant power requirements, so not as portable and less concealable,thus less likely to fall in the hands of a moron. Furthermore, they are not available in as great a numbers and are more easily tracked.
Cheers Peter