Originally Posted by
PDR1
...at a range of a few dozen feet. I challenge you to show that you could hold a hand-held laser pointer with the spot on a specific foot-square feature of a tower block over 3 miles away. Try it when you're next on stop-over in a hotel - try illuminating a target on the other side of town and see just how difficult it is.
You don't need to illuminate a specific spot you merely have to flash it briefly across my eyes and that my friend only requires a bit of luck and the very fact that you can't aim it exactly helps.
Having been the subject of a laser attack I can tell you that getting a laser in your eyes even for less than half a second does cause flash blindness. In my case it lasted for several minutes and I couldn't see the instruments properly during that time.
yesterday I challenged someone to provide cites for claims made - a claim that someone had been caught and prosecuted for using a l@ser against an airliner. It shouldn't have been that hard because such an arrest (never mind a prosecution) would have made it into the news. Unless and until I see that cite I will regard many of these claims with a degree of scepticism. Not all of them - I wouldn't for a moment suggest that such attacks never happen. But if you read back through this thread you'll see several claims which don't really stack up.
Have you tried Google?