"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message

What happens is that the more you lean in a direction like this, the more
you lean away from the issue of personal responsibility.
It's not the press who has the laser, it's the person who pointed it and
shot it at the cockpit.
snip
As rotten as the press is, and I think we all agree on THAT issue, it's
their job to report these incidents. In fact, it's actually a good thing
that incidents like this ARE reported so we can take action against those
doing these things.
It's true that there are nut cases out there who could be prompted to use
a laser on an airliner because they read about it in a newspaper, but
taking on the newspaper instead of the criminal isn't the solution; that
is unless you want to have no free press, and allow someone pointing a
laser in a cockpit to blame their action on something other than their own
desire to point it and fire it!

The press has failed the public by not investigating the claims. (Nothing
new here.) The pilot who claims to have suffered permanent eye damage is,
likely, lying or deluded. Pilots claiming that they were momentarily
blinded by a 5mw hand held laser pointer at a range of miles are lying or
crazy. It's a non-issue. It's hype. It's presented in an unbalanced
manner for the purpose of instilling fear (which sells more media). The
idiot in NY was charged under the Patriot Act! Hello??? Has anyone,
outside of the forum, heard any information from any credible source telling
them there's nothing to worry about? I suspect that this is the issue the
original poster meant to raise.

hd