Seems the FAA is taking an increasingly tough stance on those shining laser beams at aircraft. Looks like state laws are soon to be bolstered with new federal laws:

Penalties increase for flashing lasers at planes - USATODAY.com

USMCFLYR

Got popped in the eye myself. I tried to give the coontroller the exact location (street and building in Irving TX) but he just wanted general direction and distance from airport.

I had a couple of guys beaming us (about 5) with high powered flash/search lights once in the night pattern at Fentriss Field outside Virginia Beach. Come to find out that wasn't the ONLY thing they were pointing our way. They had been taking pot shots at us with a shotgun and a .22 rifle too

USMCFLYR

I couldn't help but chuckle when I clicked the link to read this thread, and the advertisements on the page are for laser pointers.

Meh, how are those federal laws doing to stop people from doing stupid stuff (masturbation, fist-fights, punching FA's) on planes? From what I hear, people generally plead down to a fine and a federal misdemeanor most of the defendants don't have the cash to pay a lawyer and will use the court appointed attorney to fight it out in court (which prosecutors hate).

I hear from folks flying oceanic/coastal/Caribbean that they frequently get hit by people on cruise boats & pleasure craft at night and that the coast guard doesn't have the manpower to do anything about it.

If our tax dollars can fund a US Customs agency that seems to be very effective at stopping me from buying faux/clone electronics, why cant they pull the high-powered lasers that come in from China? For all the double talk, its clearly not a priority for our government.

What I don't understand is why people want to do this anyway?

A follow up article with rankings of cities getting the most reports of laser hits.
LAX, ORD, PHK, DFW being airports mentioned specifically in the article.

Lasers a problem for pilots

USMCFLYR

Google ads are "targeted" so they mine the article for keywords and display ads related to the article. It leads to some horribly amusing stuff. The creepiest is when they do it in GMail -- one of my friends emailed me regarding a breakup with her boyfriend, and in the side were ads for "Divorce attorneys" and "Single dating sites" etc.

Well, they are legal, and the lasers have many other uses (astronomy, surveying, science, etc.) Probably don't want to start regulating that kind of stuff, which would become a huge government overreach.

Lots of idiots out there.

Although I'm by no means defending it and it absolutely should be penalized/illegal, it seems like the shakiness of a person's hand combined with beam spread would mean that the energy delivered is far from dangerous to eyesight even with the 200mW. More the annoyance / startle / distraction factor, but could be dangerous if they were close I suppose, or somebody did something incredibly annoying and stupid like shine it on the glideslope.

Fish in the barrel.
First test of the pumped up regs?

Texas man charged with pointing laser at plane | wcsh6.com

USMCFLYR

I was talking more to the higher power stuff that people buy off the Internet (the kind you do NOT want to look into). That gear is totally different than the legitimate stuff used in engineering, etc.

Its just like the crappy cordless phones you can get from china that bleed/interfere with cellular phones (even though the frequency is really far away).