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Weird article, a protest can be peaceful, but dont you need a permission? "Authorities ended up arresting and charging then-19-year-old college student, Amina
by Unfrozen0688 3y ago
Weird article, a protest can be peaceful, but dont you need a permission?
"Authorities ended up arresting and charging then-19-year-old college student, Amina McCaskill. Prosecutors charged her with felony, second-degree riot armed with a dangerous weapon, the weapon being the laser."
Yes? A laser can damage eyes and blind people. If shined into a heli it is VERY dangerous.
- devilbunny 3y agoYou don’t need permission to protest, but you do generally need one to march. In this case, since the protesters were physically obstructing a freeway, on which pedestrians are usually legally banned, a march permit would never have been issued. I suspect that’s part of the police rationale behind not giving orders to disperse. You might end up with a riotous crowd semi-spontaneously on a city street, so reading the Riot Act and ordering them to leave is appropriate. Everyone in this protest already broke the law by walking onto a freeway. Agreed that the laser user should face stiff penalties. Federal ones. You want to protest violently, that’s one thing. You want to endanger people who just happen to live within a mile of you by blinding pilots? That should hurt a lot more than spending a night or two in jail.
- scohesc 3y agoGenuinely asking - don't modern helicopters have the ability to hover or go on autopilot in some capacity, or am I (likely) very _very_ ignorant when it comes to helicopters? I agree with you that the person shining lasers into helicopters and blinding pilots causing potential permanent eye damage should face stiffer penalties.
- 93po 3y agoDoesn’t really matter, you never know when flying when you’ll need to react to an emergency situation, which you very much need eyesight for. If you lost vision during an engine out in a helicopter you’d surely die
- 20after4 3y agoDepends on the design of the helicopter. They are, in general, extremely difficult to control. About helicopter autopilots, I'm not qualified to answer so: https://www.quora.com/Do-helicopters-have-autopilot https://www.quora.com/Do-helicopters-have-autopilot
- dghughes 3y agoWhat they need are portable powerful infrared lights to shield themselves and obscure the IR surveillance cameras.
- dylan604 3y agoThen you'll get trumped up charges with interfering with officers, destruction of property, possibly some sort of nonsensical assault, who knows just how creative they can get. Also, won't you be super easy to track? Doubtful you could get enough people wearing these to be any more effective than ID'ing yourself
- willcipriano 3y agoWar is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength
- Unfrozen0688 3y ago[flagged]
- oldgradstudent 3y ago> Weird article, a protest can be peaceful, but dont you need a permission? The first amendment is quite clear about it > Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
- smsm42 3y agoThere are time, place and manner restrictions on assembly. If you decide to peacefully assembly in the middle of a major highway, the police will be there to explain that to you pretty soon.
- FredPret 3y agoPeacably implies not on a highway and not shining lasers this way and that.
- oldgradstudent 3y agoYes, but otherwise, there is no permission required for a peaceful assembly.
- badrequest 3y agoWhat is unpeaceable about gathering on a highway?
- FredPret 3y ago
- stuff4ben 3y agoSeems to me like a weakness. Imagine if hundreds of those protesters had lasers and shot them at the helicopters? No way you're arresting all of them and it would quickly render the police surveillance from the air moot.
- olliecornelia 3y agoRight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wapN_HGIGGE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wapN_HGIGGE
- shapenamer 3y agoThis seems to contradict statements like the one below that even a single laser, "...is no different than shooting a firearm at the helicopter."
- matt-attack 3y agoClearly. The helicopter is doing just fine. You don’t have to stare down if you’re a pilot. You can, you know, look at the horizon. Jeez the amount of boot licking here.
- salawat 3y agoUmmm... Laser pointers get diffracted by the intervening distance, and as a result, one does not have to look directly at the emitter to receive a blinding flash. Also keep in mind, these are helos, meant to hover in close proximity to things, which generally requires good visibility, often surrounding the instrument panel. Furthermore, unlime most aircraft, helos are dynamically unstable. Think of it like balancing a spinning plate. If they get the tiniest bit off kilter, they continue gettting more and more off-kilter unless actively corrected. A fixed wing aircraft could potentially nose up and safely fly on until vision returned, but a helo requires active management by the pilot to do the same, which requires vision. Helo people are fond of a saying that "planes want to fly, helos beat the air until it complies". In short "just don't look at it" isn't as effective a countermeasure as you'd like to believe.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago> A laser can damage eyes and blind people. A <1mw pointer is fairly safe all around. Some $15 ebay lasers have real risk of temp retina damage at arms length. Lasers in the $150-$400 dollar range can do real damage fast under 30'. Much more powerful Chinese military dazzlers are intended to incapacitate (not blind) at hundreds of yards. >If shined into a heli it is VERY dangerous. True. Aircraft are very vulnerable. Fifteen dollar ebay lasers are an absolute menace to night vision at hundreds of yards.
- nom 3y agoAny ebay / china laser can be unsafe. I did some test orders in Germany and 2 from the three 'high power' lasers I bought for less than 10 euros were easily over 100mw, and are even labeled as 200mW and 350mW. Very illegal to sell to consumers, but no one is checking. Ebay kicks the listings if they mention the power, so they just.. don't mention it. Buy a "high power laser pointer" and chances are you actually get one. They diodes are dirt cheap. Even at way lower output power you will damage your eyes by just looking at the dot on a wall. Use it indoors and all it takes is one unlucky reflection on a shiny object and you will wake up to a detached retina the next morning.
- smsm42 3y agoIf somebody is using a laser in a protest, we can be pretty sure they're not doing it to highlight the main points in their powerpoint presentation "How to Peacefully Protest for Fun And Profit". Trying to blind cops & helis with laser is a known riot tactics, and pretending we don't know what's going on is not very useful.