This month, the FBI announced that it was expanding a program rewarding anyone who reports an incident of an individual aiming a laser pointer at an airplane with $10,000. ( This use of the cheap lasers is a federal crime.) The bounty was previously offered in a handful of cities, but because it seems to have reduced the number of laser strikes on planes, it is being expanded nationwide.
Wait…is this really a problem? It’s several problems, in fact. The main problem is that laser pointers can, if the wielder of one gets “lucky,’ bring down an airplane. The related problem is that this country is littered with so many unbelievable assholes that we even have to discuss this….and imagine what other stupid, dangerous, irresponsible things they do when they aren’t trying blind pilots thousands of feet in the air.
Incidents where laser pointers interfered with the operation of commercial airliners have increased a ridiculous 1000% rate since 2005, when federal agencies started compiling statistics. Last year, there were 3,960 laser strikes against aircraft reported, an average of almost 11 incidents per day.
Some ethics-related thoughts:
1. There is no way around it: sociopaths, who are essentially ethics-free, are a constant threat and blight on society. Aside from the children involved, whose conduct can be chalked up to immaturity and flawed reasoning, the people who would aim a laser pointer at an airplane just for the hell of it are kin to those who set fires, vandalize buildings, create computer viruses and generally make life ugly and dangerous for the rest of us because they can. You can’t educate them or give them a sense of right and wrong. All you can do is make laws with harsh punishment for the stupid, destructive conduct these individuals engage in to give themselves a sense of power and importance. Ethics is irrelevant; their ethics alarms can’t be repaired, because they don’t exist. The laser-abusers illustrate the maxim often quoted here that “When ethics fails, the law steps in.”
2. Anyone who uses a laser pointer this way and who is aware of the potential results is capable of much worse. This is signature significance, don’t you think? It is tempting to use such a crime as a justification for pre-crime: anyone who would do this is too stupid or too inherently anti-social to be trusted in a free society. Pre-crime, however, is a concept too prone to abuse, a slippery slope that the Constitution wisely precludes. I would, however, see no reason not to require a conviction of this crime to be disclosed to every potential employer, for all time. Nobody should trust someone who even once would risk causing an airplane to fall out of the sky because it would be cool, and I don’t care if the reason for the act was the lack of brain cells, IQ points, the sense God gave a mollusk or a missing conscience. I don’t want you in my neighborhood, near my family, or in my workplace. I don’t trust you. and I never will. Does this place a burden on you, if others feel as I do? Good, and too bad for you. Don’t try to shoot 757s out of the sky for laughs, and you won’t have the problem.
3. If a laser pointer actually causes an air disaster, as one could (if it can’t, then why have the law against it? If it can’t, even the sociopaths and idiots won’t try to cause one…), you know the drill. It will be another barn door exercise. The media and the families of the victims and various associations will demand that laser pointers be banned…after a 1-1000 shot comes in. Of course, the threat of a laser pointer-caused crash is the same now as it would be then: why can’t policy makers, the media and the public figure out whether a ban makes sense before a catastrophe, rather than after? I’ll do it for them: from a utilitarian perspective, giving up the luxury of laser pointers is a small price to pay to prevent even one air disaster, especially since one is probably all it will take to get them banned anyway. The ethical trade-off is child’s play, easy as pie. In this calculation, I concur with the “if it will save only one life” argument, which is usually an irresponsible fallacy. Who needs laser pointers? I use one in my presentations, but would I give it up to save one life, anywhere? Of course. I’ll use a flashlight. My finger. A squirt gun.
4. Why not make the same decision regarding guns, then? A lot of anti-gun zealots really don’t see any difference. I presume that the readers of this post are better informed, and have better ethical analysis skills.
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Facts: Network World
Ethics Alarms 
This is something I don’t know very much about since I don’t own one. However, you rightly point out the potential danger to pilot especially using lasers of higher power. Wikipedia states ” A blue or red laser will appear much dimmer—and thus less distracting—than a green or yellow laser of equal power (wattage).” I would hate to see these things banned for business and educational use along with other legitimate purposes just because there’s some sociopaths and morons using them to disorient pilots. Maybe banning the higher power ones and the ones of green-yellow light would be appropriate.
The green one’s don’t play around. At the range of miles, you can severely reduce visibility if you happen to hit the eye just right. Odds of that are extremely low, and odds of a successful eye hit reducing visibility catastrophically are low as well. But that doesn’t justify jack ass behavior.
An off site commenter points out:
“The laser pointer you use in presentations is much lower-powered than the more expensive ones used in astronomy education and a few other specialized fields. My understanding is that it’s the latter which is dangerous to aircraft.If so, your utilitarian argument becomes far stronger. A ban to protect air safety would not affect presenters and cat owners.”
Ha, this is exactly why I came to the comment section in this post – was to see what the effect of red-dot lasers that cats chase would be. Glad to know the cat videos will likely stay safe in the face of regulation.
I have a laser level I used to build my fence last year. I was only just bright enough to be visible at 100 feet on a sunny day so it would be useless if the power was any lower.
There must be many types of lasers in use, some powerful enough to cause problems for pilots. If a crash occurs and the authorities put the blame on lasers, would they ban all types of lasers?
Perhaps our current legislature and kneejerk style politics…
Huh, we use them to play with the cats, they love chasing them. As an indoor/nighttime toy the risk to a 757 should be zero as they don’t fly through my living room.
Correct, it also helps that you aren’t a jack ass.
Would you also ban geese? Wasn’t it geese that forced the emergency landing in NY a few years ago?
I think laser pointers are stupid, but you can’t ban all lasers. They are needed in labs now. A sociopath could still get his hands on one — probably a more powerful one, Goldfinger-style.
I said laser pointers, not lasers. LOTS of good reasons to ban geese…
Banning laser pointers only would be a completely pointless, it would inconvenience their users, while the idiots who misuse them would switch to some other type of laser.
Could be. More likely they would move on to some other gratuitously destructive behavior.
Yes, but let’s look at the ratio here:
The potential result of jackassery to effort of jackassery ratio of lazing an airplane probably soars compared to other forms of jacksssery… especially if you take that ratio compared to likelihood of getting caught.
Now, ban the lazing jackassery, and sure they’ll move on, but many maybe dissuaded as other jackassery options may increase likelihood of getting caught or increases the effort necessary…
Whittle away at the margins, and if those margins are big enough it may be worth it.
What other types of lasers are readily obtainable?
I hate geese….
It would be a shame to ban them outright. I am an amateur astronomer, and use a high powered green one to help my and neighborhood kids find sky stuff. It’s only on briefly, and I scan the sky before I hit the button. I do not let them use it. Used responsibly, at a safe distance from airports, they are very useful. Especially for the kids when you can point to a dozen Harry Potter characters in a clear night sky.
#5: What about the powerful laser sights used on firearms? As far as dealing with sociopaths, you are absolutely correct in asserting that they cannot have their sense of ethics repaired. There simply is no cure for sociopathy as we would define “cure”; all that can be done is a sort of aversion therapy, wherein they are punished for affronts on society so severely and consistently that it becomes unrewarding to misbehave. We do the opposite, in fact, especially if the person has been formally diagnosed with one of that subset of personality disorders.
Yeah, then we’d have to weigh the societal losses of a ban versus the societal gains and make sure we’ve truly captured all those gains and losses for a fair comparison.
Because any reasonable interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as it pertains to the Founder’s intent would say “If a standard infantryman gets to have it, then I get to have it.”
That’s precisely what I meant. It’s why I would consider a ban on lasers impossible.
Also depends of the kind of laser being considered.
The fact that a weapons laser could accomplish the same end result is what would make this impractical. Sure, you could ban the ultra-cheap ones, but if you’re nuts enough to have a plane-crashing, baby-killing fetish, I’m sure the $15-to-$150 cost of a gun laser wouldn’t be much of an obstacle.
My theory is that this casual stupidity magnified my anti-social disorders, not mad villains determined to crash airplanes. If it’s the latter, you are right…and sometimes you might be right. For the vast majority of the jerks who do this, I’m guessing, a price increase will be enough to stop them. But that’s a guess.
The aircraft should be fitted with triangulating sensors and send a laser right back at the origin. Preferably at a genitalia sterilizing frequency…
Or the same thing, but with a minigun in addition to a laser
Lasers of all kinds and of all wattages are just too prevalent in modern society to ban. They’re here to stay. So, unfortunately, are criminals and other irresponsible idiots. Much as we might want to give these cretins the Goldfinger Treatment, that likely wouldn’t cure the problem, either. Practically speaking, the places where pilots are in the most danger from laser devices are in landing patterns where they are close to the ground. This also puts them in danger from actual terrorists with more powerful devices who might seek a disaster as part of their agenda. These are the ones I fear the most. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed before a real catastrophe occurs.