Personally I’m not so convinced ‘ bored rich kids’ are responsible – P.I.L ‘ Pilot Incapacitation Lasers ’ have been around since the 1980’s, - indeed the’ Flasher’ was fitted to some of our ships in the Falklands War, though not officially used and later removed as part of the Geneva Convention.
I must say, if I was in command of a warship under attack I’d use everything available…
I worked with laser designators on a test range which had a “ blinding range of 9 miles ” – that was quite a few years ago now.
The resident expert had taken an accidental laser hit in an eye, and described it as “ unbearable pain, as if his eyeball was exploding ” – leading to permanent blindness on that side.
In my job recording the laser ‘splash’ on target – so a little uncomfortably close – on the first sortie I was given full goggles covered with sensors which were supposed to shriek & black out the lenses if I took a hit; when I asked “ how do they work faster than light then ? ” I was met with a shrug…
On later trials I was issued with what looked like fancy sunglasses for the same purpose, which I fervently hoped were tuned to the same frequency as the laser !
With that proviso in mind, such ‘sunglasses’ might be required kit for even civilian pilots ?