A 19-year-old North Hollywood [CA] man has been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for aiming a laser pointer at a commercial aircraft — a steep punishment going well beyond the year federal prosecutors were seeking.If I were running things, the little fuck's head would be on a pike in the town square (or whatever passes for one in North Hollywood).
As far as I'm concerned, this is equivalent to shooting at airplanes, though with a green laser, the effective range is longer. This isn't some harmless kiddie prank, as his attorneys tried to portray it. Some of those jets are flown single-pilot, blinding the pilot with a laser could have bad consequences, both for everyone on the aircraft and people on the ground.
This story needs to be publicized far and wide.
Anything above class 2 is considered an eye danger
ReplyDeleteand most of the green lasers out there are class 3B meaning they are unsafe if you get hit in the eye. Most I've seen run from 5mw and a few were in the 50mw range. The latter can pop dark color balloons at close range or blind someone out to more than 10s of yards.
This is serious and unfortunately most people do not understand how powerful these solid state lasers are.
Not a toy.
Eck!