Mark in CA
'Banned in the UK' will be hard to achieve and will not happen, but having laser pointers classified as offensive weapons will make a big difference and is certainly not over the top. That would give police the right to stop and search somebody for possession - at the moment they can't do that even if they reasonably believe the individual to have been responsible for an attack, which makes prosecution a tad difficult at times.
Banning high-power lasers (rather than all lasers) is a different question. There is work going on in Europe that may lead to high-power devices being banned in the EC - always assuming we are still part of it! - and the existing legislation in the UK supposedly limits pointers to 1mW. That becomes pretty meaningless when you can import via the internet or pick them up from the street vendors on your travels. The other issue, as mentioned earlier, is that power output is often different from the declared spec. At least with a few simple changes to the law we might be able to make a difference. We might even prevent a few life-changing injuries on the way.
We know from BALPA surveys that attacks are under-reported, possibly by a third, and that only takes account of UK operators. The overseas operators (50% of the commercial traffic) are supposed to report to their own NAAs. If we don't report all attacks we get in the UK, why should we expect others to report all attacks here as well? 2015 figures are likely to reveal 1800+ attacks, and if we apply a margin for overseas operators and UK under-reporting, we could actually be looking at 3500-4000 events (crimes) per year.
New Zealand managed to make a serious reduction in its attack rates via a combination of restrictions on power and carriage rules, and an increase in penalties. If it worked for them, it should work for us.