Australia to ban laser pointers
While pocket models can't beat Washington University's 40W model, NSW officials still rate them as dangerous.
According to several Australian news agencies – News.com.au and The Sydney Morning Herald to name but two – the state has officially banned high-powered laser pointers – specifically, classes three and four – classifying them as 'prohibited weapons' – the same category as firearms. Anyone found carrying such a laser pointer in public without the Australian equivalent of a Firearms Certificate will be guilty of an offence punishable by up to fourteen years imprisonment. Even if you've only got a weedy little keychain unit, you'll still find yourself up on summary charges if you can't think of a good reason for having it with you in a public place.
The move appears to have been triggered by a rash of 'attacks' on aircraft, with misguided individuals allegedly shining high-powered lasers at low-flying helicopters and planes in an attempt to blind the pilots. The New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma describes the most recent of these incidents, in which an air ambulance was targetted over Sydney, as “a gutless and cowardly act that could result in an horrific outcome,” while stating that “it only takes a fraction of a second for a pilot to become temporarily blinded” by such a device.
Although Western Australia has already banned the devices, the consequences of being caught with a class three laser on or about your person in a public place in New South Wales are a lot greater – fourteen years compared to just twelve months in Western Australia.
Any geeks out there in the Antipodes having to arrange a hiding place for their star-pointer lasers, or have we all moved on from thinking pocket-sized coherent light generators are neat-o? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyAnyway, losing the right to carry them seems fair came if people are misusing them so blatently. Although how can you possibly get the angle to shine a laser pen into a plane? surely the nose would stop it reaching the windscreen?
We have seen it over here with things like the pistol ban and the violent crime reduction bill.
What is needed is existing laws to be implemented fully and punishments given that fit the crime rather than the watered down slap on the wrists we see now.
Besides, I highly doubt these lasers are a real public safety issue in the first place. Probably trying to score points by being 'tough on youth', 'tough on hooliganism and vandalism', etc. Election coming up, they need to play more theater for the masses of sheep.
edit: several people start attacking people with table forks..... LETS BAN FORKS!!!!!!!
http://www.a-human-right.com/
That site is hilarious
It is about reducing the availability of means to the 'casual' ****, rather than the hard-core criminal who, who let's be honest, has got business crime to be getting on with rather than trying to blind some bus drivers or ambulance chopper pilots for kicks.
The same applies to guns. Gun bans do not disarm hard-core criminals, but they do disarm the occasional disaffected nutter student who wants to go postal on his peers, the drunk neighbour who wants to have it out with you over some petty dispute, or the inadequate wife beater who can't quite accept his ex leaving him.
The added bonus is that if your do catch a hard-core criminal carrying a gun, you can arrest him outright rather than wait to see how he is going to exercise his right to bear arms.
There is no point clamouring for more effective application of the law and stricter punishment, if you give the police no laws to work within in the first place.
I get your point about the casual man in the street obtaining something in the heat of passion, so to say. This is what our pistol ban and violent crime reduction (VCR) bill was designed to stop. Gun crime has continued to rise and will do so until the existing laws we have (and have had for a loooong time) are enforced properly in the courts.
Sorry for the rants but as an airgun shooter and knife collector, this is a subject very close to me.
The last time I saw a laser pointer used or the last several times was when the teacher pointed something out on the board while staying out of the way so we could copy it down. He has one of those ridiculously bright green ones that probably could bring down a plane.
Apparently you can get sniper like lasers, and they are very precise. However you do need them for some work places. They won't take the high powered lasers away from Astronomers or Road workers just like they didn't with guns and the police. I would rather see a ban on these lasers then have 110 passengers or 416 passengers die as a result of so called "fun", take in mind that these people aren't doing it whilst the planes are thousands of feet in the air but meters from landing, that's hoq they can aim in the slits.
i had to chuckle when i visit that site.
just curious tho, does the author ever kill a man before?
im afraid you wrong there, that study just proves that the influx of new weapons to the criminals slows when the price of weapons rises.
the claim that it is "fact" as you say that making firearms less available = reduction in gun crime is also wrong. year on year since the handgun ban, firearms offences have risen.
anywhos, if they catch anyone trying to blind a helicopter pilot then they should treat it as attempted murder imo
Meanwhile, the US has by far the highest rate of school shootings of any country (about 34 out of 45 school shootings over the last decade occurred in the US). It also has the most easy access to firearms.
the effects of the ban directly after 97 equalled a huge increase in firearms related crime, almost double by your own figures - the fact that in the last couple of years there has been a drop is solely down to the increased policing of the issue and a drop in airgun usage - illegal firearm use still increased during that period (albeit a very low 0.1% increase)
so year on year since the handgun ban there has been an increase in firearm crime
Whoa now. Are you suggesting that banning guns resulted in an increase in gun crime? Care to explain that one?
This means that of the 13,874 crimes in 1998/99, 9231 (67%) involved imitation or air guns, and 4643 (33%) real, hard firearms.
Of the 21,521 crimes in 2005/06, 13721 (64%) involved imitation or air guns, and 7809 (36%) real, hard firearms.
That would tell me that imitation/airguns increased a bit during that period (or arguably, stayed roughly stable), rather than dropped as you suggest. Only those "firearms" positively identified as being imitations or air weapons (e.g. by being recovered by the police or by being fired) are classed as such, so the actual numbers are likely to be higher.
Since 1998, the number of people injured by firearms in England and Wales increased by 110%, from 2,378 in 1998/99 to 5,001 in 2005/06. But the number of homicides committed with firearms has remained between a range of 46 and 97 for the past decade, standing at 50 in 2005/06 --a fall from 75 the previous year.
I think that you also have to consider the alternative. What do you suggest: un-ban firearms? We are seeing how well that is working out for the US. I do not think that it is going to reduce gun crime. The idea that criminals will be more careful if they know that there is a reasonable possibility that their potential victim is armed is a fallacy --they just get bigger guns. They simply escalate. They are the one with the mindset and predisposition to do violence.
What we are seeing around us is a society that, by and large, fails to meet its adult responsibilities time and again. People drive recklessly and engage in road rage. They get drunk and get into fights on Friday nights. They run up massive financial debts. Sexually transmitted disease is on the up again. Parents fail to parent their kids appropriately. Give people laser pointers, and they appear to use them to blind drivers and pilots for kicks. Should we give them access to firearms too? I think not.
it has some logic... but it wont happen the same way everywhere...
Then again, anything that would lower the chav population can only be a positive thing :p
or a negative... imagine chavs with guns.
good point!
They should only ban the laser pointers that are bright enough to cause eye damage.
Welcome to forums anyway :D
EDIT: OOPS THE THREAD IS FROM 2008!