[microcolonel]

Yeah, I don't really see the issue. People play with knives, operate firearms, use table saws, and cross the street in traffic all the time. The stakes are high in life, and if you're not careful you might poke an eye out with that thing, but what fun is a world where everything is engineered to be too dull to poke an eye out?

[xioxox]

Because it's extremely easy to damage other people with lasers. Stray reflections can easily blind. It's one thing if you're in an enclosed space only able to hurt yourself, but most of the real world is not like that.

[mdip]

Agreed, and that's to say nothing of the speed at which blindness can occur. Then there's those pesky IR lasers which at the right class level can blind you in wavelengths you cannot see[0].

[0] Which to me has always been one of those "hard to believe things" and, indeed, I've never worked with an IR laser or tested this (nor would I be interested in doing so) but I can't think of something more terrifying (related to blindness, anyway) than walking into a room, looking at something, seeing nothing particularly interesting and then ... seeing nothing at all ever again.

[pdkl95]

> Stray reflections can easily blind.

To emphasize this point, since we're talking about a 450nm laser at either 500mW (maybe just barely low enough to hypothetically qualify as Class 3B?) or 800mW (probably Class 4?), any stray reflections could easily cause blindness before the eye can respond by blinking.

Any laser powerful enough to burn or cut is a "why did my eye make a popping sound"[1], risk, not the "blink oww! that's bright!" that we are familiar with.

[1] the sound is a spot on the retina explosive boiling after the laser heated it extremely rapidly past 100C

[microcolonel]

Here's a video of a public axe throwing contest with amateur participants, no backstop, and people directly behind it.

https://youtu.be/EeiMvKuXs0E

People endanger the public at large all the time, knowingly or unknowingly. There is no decent world in which acts which merely pose a danger to the public are illegal before they cause that danger.

[jerf]

People instinctively understand the risks of throwing things, even sharp and heavy things. People do not have an instinctive understanding of the risks of lasers. They may both be dangerous, but that does not mean the two levels of danger are the same.

[anfractuosity]

Also animals like cats might actively try to catch it.

[arkades]

Because the selling point is public use: its not just dangerous for the operator, but goes out of its way to invite bystanders.

[microcolonel]

Public use? As in use in public spaces? Rooms with unclosed windows? Well sure, that's unsafe and you should tell your customers not to do it, but you'd be crazy to think that permission is what's stopping people from dangerously operating lasers these days.

And what about the bit where he says that it's "the wild west" (mythicized time when, in actuality, homicide rates were not really that high, especially for the time) or "mad max" (completely fictional Australian motor fantasy).

The things that actually prevent laser related injuries from being a common health problem are a) common knowledge about laser safety (usually explained thoroughly by manufacturers), and b) the relative obscurity and lack of particular interest in high powered laser devices.

[nkrisc]

Drop your butterfly knife, you might just hurt yourself. Knock over that Cubiio, you might blind your neighbor in the building next to yours.