Wonder how hard it would be to make one?

Easy. A few hundred milliwatt IR laser is cheap (you could probably make a cheap one for <$50). A multi-watt IR laser is a bit more expensive and difficult, but still doable.

Interesting. The next question is the legality. Not really interested in anything multi-watt, I saw a utube vid and those things are wicked. I just want a cheap toy that would be visible on an IR camera up to like 20 feet away. Guess I better read up a little. Off to goog , well somewhere.

The FDA cannot regulate what you build, only what you sell. Check out laserpointerforums.com.

One thing is for sure, export of any ITAR night vision or laser related items is no joke:

http://www.justice.gov/nsd/docs/export-case-fact-sheet.pdf


Stolen Night Vision Equipment and Laser Illuminators Overseas – On April 27, 2012, a
criminal complaint was filed in the Middle District of Florida charging Fidel Ignacio Cisneros, a
former U.S. Army soldier, with violating the Arms Export Control Act.  According to the complaint,
Cisneros stole a variety of U.S. military items while stationed with the U.S. Army in
Iraq and then posted the items on eBay for sale and export to purchasers around the globe,
including Japan.  Among the items he allegedly sold over eBay were Atilla 200 lasers, used to
assist soldiers in combat missions, as well as a night vision scope, a satellite phone, a phone
docker and other items. This investigation was conducted by ICE.

Man, that guy is so stupid..

It's extremely easy to make or buy.  Just be careful about IR.  Since your eye can't detect the IR spectrum, you have to extra careful about the IR laser hitting a reflective object and going back into your eyes.  If powerful enough it can cause eye damage.

THAT is a very interesting argument to make HERE.  Exactly what characteristic or function of "certain things" you wish to regulate makes them more dangerous than a firearm?

Give one or more good arguments for regulating "certain things" that would not apply even moreso to firearms.

Late to the party here, but I have an answer: with the number of reported incidents of stupid people aiming visible green lasers at aircraft in flight, and the potential for such acts to cause crashes, some sort of regulation makes sense, just like none of us would feel comfortable if Joe AlwaysDrunk could just walk in and buy a machine gun.  Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of very stupid people who will do very stupid things with potentially ruinous consequences because they have such tiny little brains.  Thus the idiots who light up airliners with >5mW green lasers, or the countless idiots at gun shows who ignore muzzle safety while examining guns... (Yesterday I had this happen to me FIVE times, and it wasn't Fudds or elderly people...). With the number of different laser devices at the show I was at, it was surprising to me that I was only lit up twice.... . An invisible laser that can blind people is far more hazardous in the wrong hands than just about any other device, since the holder CANNOT SEE WHAT HE IS DOING without IR vision devices.

Considering the number and variety of idiots out there, I would not feel safe if such devices were easily and openly available to just anyone because the consequences of accidental or intentional misuse are just too great.  The catch is that laser safety is decades behind gun safety in the public mind, and the question "what does anyone really need such things for anyway" is actually valid for 99% of the population.  

What "right" is being infringed if high powered lasers are not freely available to just anyone?  How much freedom do we give up if the law requires a buyer to not have a criminal record, or that the buyer has to acknowledge in writing (taking legal and civil responsibility) that this is a Dangerous Device and must be handled and used carefully?

Depends: one might put forth the argument that a high-powered laser is an 'arm'.

Again, anyone can see what they are doing with a firearm or a car (whether that is good or bad).  Not so with an IR laser.

Since we're talking about weapons mounted lasers here, if you can see what you're doing with the weapon, the same applies to the IR laser as it is slaved & coaligned with the bore of the weapon. For your typical weapons lasers, i.e PEQ-2 & PEQ-15, the harmful distance of the laser is far shorter than that of the bullet being fired from the weapon. I be a hell of a lot more worried of the loaded weapon rather than the IR laser. If we're going to prohibit the possession of weapon mounted IR lasers, hell, lets just prohibit the possession of the weapons that they are mounted to. Let's remove the danger completely.

I agree that weapon lasers are far less of an issue for safety, but regulators are looking at all IR lasers, not just weapon lasers.  If idiots with green laser pointers play around and blind aircrews, what could they do with a high-powered IR laser?  That's the safety and regulation challenge.

I think there'd be far less issues with high powered IR lasers then colored lasers since the fun factor of pissing people off and pointing stuff out isn't there with an invisible laser.

There should be a variance for "weapon mounted" IR systems. There's a varience for everything, so throwing a variance for "has mounting system and zero adjustment" shouldn't be out of the question.

I'd be perfectly happy with a variance for diffused IR laser based illuminators. That's the only upside for C3 lasers for small arms useage.

Not to be "that guy" but If I can buy a PEQ-15 then that's up to me, not the FDA. What the Government doesn't know won't hurt them.

what i find odd is how many people on this board have peqs in their photos, and no one says anything to them. what is also odd is how many people who are "trainers/instructors" have them, when they arent mil/leo. it would sure seem that there are way more legal peqs out there than they want you to believe.

The difference boils down to Practical vs.Principle.

Principally, I think anyone should be able to own and do absolutely anything that does not either directly or (within reason) indirectly "damage" another. That damage can take any variety of forms and isn't really the point of discussion. I think anyone who has the ability to procure an F-22 Raptor for themselves should not be legally inhibited from doing so.

Principally...

However, the practical is another matter entirely. Do I want some 14 year old budding pyromaniac (and what 14 year old isn't?) to have access to a laser capable of blinding me for life without my even knowing it? Do I want *anyone* with a few hundred dollars in their pocket to have the ability to walk into a Walmart and buy a device with such a capability? Of course not.

How we, as a people, ultimately find a compromise between those two is the real crux of the matter. This applies to far more than IR lasers, but rather almost everything in life. Principally, I am ardently opposed to any government regulation of anything on the basis of liberty alone -- again, as far as it does NOT harm / damage another. Practically, I know people are flawed and do dumb things and for our own good need to be (forgive me) "regulated."

That said, pertinent to this particular issue -- treat high-output IR lasers as an NFA item. Give recourse to those in the general public who would seek to procure them, but don't make it as easy as buying a Windham AR at your local Walmart.

No.  You and the state are not qualified to tell anyone what they can and can not have.

I think the biggest issue here is that invisible, high-power level lasers have safety concerns that go beyond what almost everyone in our society is prepared for.  Most of us (ALL of us here!) have a decent idea of what happens when a firearm discharges, but almost nobody has a real grasp of what happens when an invisible laser is turned on, and what that laser can do to materials and people.

I do not like the thought that we should have to depend on regulations (enforced from without, by some governmental agency) to keep the large majority of ignorant people from hurting others with lasers, whether accidentally or on purpose.  But until we have a way for EVERYBODY to become very well educated on how lasers work and what they do, HOW ELSE will we keep those 14 year old budding pyros from playing around with very powerful devices that can permanently blind people?  How else will we keep individuals who just don't have a clue what they're doing from randomly and silently wreaking havoc?  Personal responsibility has limits when the individual does not have even basic knowledge about what the thing they're using does.

Did you read what you just wrote?  Your logic is faulty.  Are you an anarchist?

My .02...

I've had a few conversations with senior investigators at the FDA and from these conversations it's pretty clear to me that there isn't any law precluding the ownership of high power IR laser. The FDA folks that I spoke with were only concerned with the manufacturing aspects and labeling. In fact the labeling was much like a mattress tag...the owner of the device has no obligation to keep the labels on, it's simply a FDA manufacturing requirement.  The fact that companies won't sell these to civilians is a self-policing mechanism and there's no law that I'm aware of that precludes the sale of these. My info is dated though and I haven't kept up with the topic so laws may have changed.

The whole question of high power IR laser ownership comes down to providence of the item,. e.g. has it been stolen or misappropriated? The stolen aspect is pretty simply to understand.

The misappropriated issue is a little more dicey. For example Fed, State and local LE have been given NVDs to include IR lasers for a while under 1033. A stipulation of that program is that these items must be returned to uncle sugar once they're no longer needed. This has caused some issues as these items are very poorly tracked and some individual officers have sold them to other members of the public. Are these items stolen? Nope but they are misappropriated and they still belong to the USG.

Another quirk was items being DRMO'd. The way the reg reads there is no DRMO of weapons, which NVDs fall under. The sticky part here is that disassembled lenses, housings, etc.. can be DRMO'd but not tubes (in the case of NODs).

The stolen aspect of PEQs has also become a real issue.  In my experience these items were very tightly controlled and many a paratrooper in Division has slept on Sicily DZ for a few nights when some jackass decided that he needed a PEQ or a set of NODs. The fact of the matter is that the paradigm has changed and due to the war logistics efforts 1000's of these have been stolen. On trip down range a couple years ago I was chatting to a CID buddy and he mentioned that PEQ-15s were showing up by the hundreds in the arms markets on the Pak border. These were being stolen off of the trucks that were moving supplies.

Finally, there have been many of these legally sold by companies. A few years ago a company known as .44 mag (IIRC) had a few hundred DBALs that they obtained legally from a LE agency turn in and then sold. Were they scrutinized? Yup. Did they do anything illegal? Not to my knowledge.  


As for HSI they've gotten involved for a number of reasons. Firstly, as mentioned, many are stolen property hence a criminal offense to own. These are also ITAR items and HSI doesn't want these existing in the gray market to ultimately end up on some Hajji's rifle. That's the real gist here.

to play devils advocate, purchasing a firearm requires zero proof of knowledge of how the firearm works, or firearms safety.

True, but culturally we are all exposed to most of the basics of how firearms work.  I would hope that a horrendously UNsafe customer would be educated by the seller before he or she got to actually put money down to buy a gun, but this is really an important issue.  Not "make it go bang and something is destroyed," but the rest of the firearm safety piece, like trigger discipline, pointing in a safe direction, etc.  I can't tell you how many Fudds at gun shows have basically pointed their bolt gun or shotgun at me just by carrying it over their shoulder...

What exactly is being discussed here? The ability to own a high power IR laser?  As far as I know they are currently legal to own.  The fact that full power PEQs can't be purchased is an industry induced restriction, not law or regulation. If someone has info to the contrary please post it.

I have no IR lasers so I really have nothing to lose either way, but this law pisses me off, and agents expecting people to just give up their rights really piss me off too. I understand that even if you can not build a case at least you are recovering property, but our rights as a nation are in trouble for just this sort of thinking.

OST

Multiwatt is kind of difficult.  But you can get close to 1W.  I have some 300mW and 500mW laser diodes.  Cost a few bucks each.  And they make higher power ones closer to a watt. The difficulty factor doesn't get harder. The difficulty factor is in finding the diodes. ;)

It's true that ITAR is no joke. But it's not ITAR, just because you build it. If you don't use any ITAR materials, it's not ITAR.

I have a 0.7mW IR laser. They are cool.  I have just received some 500mW IR laser diodes and will be making one. And yes, I have safety glasses.  Just for academic purposes though.  Probably too powerful for my night vision. ;)

I've said this before in this thread. There is no legality for the possession of a Class 3 laser.  The FDA regulates sale and labeling of those items, not possession. I got that info from an FDA senior investigator that I spoke with on the matter.

The real issue here is that an 1811 in HSI decided a few years ago that he would remove as many milspec IR lasers as he could from the streets. Case in point is that I had a conversation with a CID buddy in Iraq a few years ago and he said brand-new PEQs were showing up at the Souqs. Convoys were being robbed at an alarming rate and all sorts of NVDs were going missing. So ultimately if you've got a milspec PEQ15 there's a good chance it's stolen. DBALs were released in pretty large quanities in about 2005, IIRC and  those were legit.

The 1811 used the weight of law and threat of incarceration to confiscate these items. I believe that he was well intentioned as there are a butt load of stolen PEQs on the street from pilferage and outright theft during the wars.  The fact is though he was not truthful and using the threat of criminal charges and and a very expensive litigious process to prove your innocence to intimidate people. Happens ALL the time in the LE world.  Was he doing God's work? Maybe...but it's important that the facts are known


I also lost a very nice MXPVS-14 tube because I sent a unit in for servicing and the company reported to ITT as a milspec tube. I got a very nice call from NCIS and had the honor of donating a $2K tube to the USG. The fact that 10's of 1000's of these tubes have been legally sold to civillians had no bearing. I could decide to either turn it in or lawyer up and pay $20K (or more...) to keep a $2K tube. The same applies for some of the PEQs out there.

Not writing this to bitch but rather inform some of you guys that haven't been around long enough to understand that the NVD hobby has some booby traps. To be honest best bet is to buy from a legit dealer and keep your receipt.

I'm new to the ir party here. Came to research for a light for my new AK...but in the future I'd like to get a NV monocular and I'd need an IR laser to go with it. Question: if manufacturing/selling to civvies is a problem, where are the "80% kits"? If it hasn't happened already, it seems like the Form 1 suppressor crowd had already led the way...

Also, I don't know jack about laser power levels. Is a sub-5mW IR laser a useful tool for NV shooting? What kind of throw could one expect in normal conditions? I see that the peq 15 is 30mW...but it also throws over 2000m. I only need 50 yards prolly...

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For the vast majority of uses, you don't need a full power laser.  The one thing I miss from using the full power units in the mil is the illuminator which is like a IR flashlight.  

Is the "IR flashlight" illuminator part of the "restricted" hardware?  I thought only the designator laser was restricted.

Unfortunately it is as its laser based.  You can get some nice LED IR illuminators that are almost as good as the real thing.

Exactly. DBAL D2 has slaved lasers and an LED IR illuminator.

The new DBAL A4 will have slaved lasers, an LED IR illum and a white light illuminator.

I wonder how many of our own NODs & Lasers eventually made their way into triplicate "wrong " hands after the last aircraft took off, only to be used against us - again!

"Combat Loss?" - I think not.......

No, some sort of regulation doesn’t make sense. Laws don’t stop people (broad stroke, but accurate).

Speed limits don’t stop you from speeding, and speeding causes accidents all of the time.

People who want to do shitty things do it.

Things are NEVER to be blamed.

“It’s makes sense to regulate” comes from people with agendas or those that have been duped into bringing the agenda.

So?  You don’t know where your bullets are always going to end up. Yeah, you shoot into a backstop. Ricochets happen. Best we ban all ammo just in case. After all, if it just saves one life…..

Even better, we need to ban all ammo even though your back stop is safe and ricochet proof because other people have ricochets.

WTF OVER? Anyone else as lost as I am?

It’s an echo of an old argument discussion about the utility of federal regulation on the sale and use of various kinds of lasers.  My take, which seems to have been diluted by a lot of counter discussion, is that since “you can’t fix stupid,” at least making it harder to get something that is easy to screw up with (invisible lasers that can blind people miles away) might slow down the stupids.  I was NOT “defending” the regulations, just explaining their rationale.

In any case, it’s primarily FDA regulations that are in play.  It is not illegal to sell lasers, nor to own them.  It IS a violation of regulations to sell something as a “pointer” that has more than a specific power level, or if the device is intended to be a “medical device” and the seller does not limit sales to actual medical buyers.

The BIGGEST issue, regulations or not, is that an infrared laser - which produces a beam that is NOT visible to the naked eye - has inherent issues with safety of use.  If Mr. Dum Bass decides he wants to point his IR laser at a person, there is a high probability that he will light up that person’s face.

Laser injuries to the eyes are often only painful for a short period of time, and depending on the situation when they happen, they may not be noticed as injuries until later.  Sadly, there’s not much that can be done to treat these injuries.  Infrared energy focused on a specific spot on the retina tends to destroy that part of the retina - and the retina cannot heal from such injuries.

One of the side issues involved is range.  The more power a laser has, the less its beam will be scattered by air, dust, and humidity.  So to get substantial range with an IR laser, you need to give it plenty of power, which makes it more effective, but also gives it more energy to cause injuries with.

the FP laser is over kill in my opinion unless its for longer than dsitances i could identify a target with anyways. The Illuminator on the other hand is amazing on a FP unit.

Wonder how long before the FDA or some other worthless agency says we can't own wizard eyes? Oh no you can't own those it's too dangerous think of the children.  Seeing all the guntubers out there with NGALs and PEQs tell me again how they obtained those legally? Rules for thee not for me..