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Comment by newacct583 | Hacker News Reader

FWIW: these have been reported to be in active use against the Portland protesters. It's so frustrating that HN chooses the gadget puff piece to push to the top of the front page instead of the actual deployed weapons.

Most especially because the much-lower-power pocket laser pointers have been cited by the white house directly as having "permanently blinded" federal agents. (Consumer red/green lasers are extraordinarily unlikely to cause permanent blindness, that's why they're available to consumers. You'd have to hold them on the same spot in your retina for minutes to kill cells thermally, the frequency won't do it alone.)

Edit: yes, folks, I'm talking about laser pointers. Obviously these things are poorly regulated and folks can get all kinds of crazy dangerous things online. There's zero evidence that any of them are in use by protesters in Portland. There's some shots of kids with clicky pointers.

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Used against Portland protestors? From the videos I've seen, it's the "protestors" using them against the police.

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1286914458032332800

That's exactly the point. It's the same thing. But it's a cool weapon gadget presented here, when it's a horrifying atrocity that demands tear gas and brutality when used by the "other side".

It's this weaponization of "bothsidesism" that I'm having trouble with. We've got an almost 100% peaceful protest of hippies going on every night for two months, but what posters here want to talk about is the fancy anti-riot gear being used against them.

I think to call it almost 100% peaceful is not meeting us in good faith. That’s simply nowhere approaching the truth.

What's your estimate then? I mean... I'm here in Portland. I can drive right by downtown (drove straight through Ground Zero at main and 3rd just this morning). I see the hippies. I don't see violence. Show me the violence. Tell me why I need to support tear gassing these kids every night for two months.

No one will. But I see people vote up these posts about "yay lasers!" instead. I'm out of patience here. I can see with my own eyes who the bad guys are, so can you, and yet... "look! lasers!"

Well, "no violence that I have personally seen during the day" doesn't really have any relevance to "is there violence during the night" - and all the police brutality / protester violence / arson etc videos I've seen from Portland have been at night.

You know what I meant. There's plenty of video evidence of brutality on one side (again: literally tear gas, impact munitions and billy clubs every night for two months!) and a flood of highly spun "well, it's sorta like violence" on the other (laser pointers, fireworks, cutting fences, "they're holding shields"). I can see what I see. You can too. So why the insistence that "we don't know"? We know.

I can't speak for Portland, but I have seen the SPD instigate violence on numerous occasions, against peaceful protests. In those instances, including in the time leading up to the violence - nobody was throwing anything at the police lines, nobody was destroying property - until the police started chucking flash and gas grenades and firing less-lethal bullets into crowds. (Which have all, by the way, been outlawed by city council - yet the police department is still using them.)

That is not how every Seattle protest has gone, but that's how many of them have - many during the day (Although a few turned that way at night, as well).

>>>I don't see violence. Show me the violence.

How about shooting commercial-grade incendiaries at an occupied structure and causing injuries? https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/05/us/portland-riots-july-4/inde...

"The fireworks injured several officers when they exploded on or near them, the statement said."

Or the 6 officers injured Friday night: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/26/portla...

Well, one of the two has safety features installed to make sure that the laser doesn't blind anyone, and the other doesn't.

So yeah, the military version is actually a fair bit safer and less damaging than the would-actually-be-a-war-crime blinding weapons that protestors seem to be using.

From friends on the ground in Portland I will say it's largely still aggravated by police presence and the DHS/federal agents. If authorities did not step in with tear gas and kidnapping protests would have continue to be mostly nonviolent. Turns out that when you meet protests against police brutality with police brutality and disappearing citizens, nothing improves.

There are small groups and agitators causing issues not out of self defense but they are few and far between if not turned over by protesters when identified. Portland isn't on fire, civil rights are.

What other protests have anywhere near this much violence? Gay rights movements have had large protests/marches for decades. Same with anti-abortion activists (and pro-choice activists). Hell, even literal neo-nazis have protests that don't get this violent.

This is a protest against the police. So of course the cops are going to get violent. What's horrifying is the extent to which people refuse to see that and just figure "well, the protesters have to have done something to deserve it".

Not a protest per se, but riots did result from police violence against the gay community.

https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/the-stonewall-riot...

The Stonewall riots (also referred to as the Stonewall uprising or the Stonewall rebellion) were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBT) community[note 1] in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, and neighborhood street people fought back when the police became violent. The riots are widely considered to constitute one of the most important events leading to the gay liberation movement[2][3] and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots

The 1970s generally were rather more violent than is commonly remembered:

https://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/

Going further back, there's the history of police (and military) response to labour organisation, the reason many larger US cities have military armouries:

The proliferation of urban armories—dedicated buildings for National Guard unit training and community functions—dates to the 19th century, according to Army National Guard Lt. Col. Don McFadden, chief of the Strategic Plans and Education Branch. “The Civil War draft riots and labor riots of the 19th century spurred construction,” he says

https://savingplaces.org/stories/a-salute-to-us-armories

As Jeremy Brecher wrote in his labor history Strike! state governments built armories as fortresses in American cities “not against invasion from abroad but against popular revolt at home.”

https://shoeleatherhistoryproject.com/2020/03/12/storm-cente...

That you had to go back to the 60s and 70s to make your point demonstrates how out of the ordinary these "mostly peaceful" protests are.

There are more recent examples, I'm sure you could find several on a few minutes' search.

A common element to many is protest not simply of some policy or political issue, but where the aggrieved group is seen by The System as non-persons, and the protest is aimed at the system itself. Most especially at how The System exerts its will, which is to say, through police forces, courts, and corrections. When the institutions of law and order themselves are questioned, common ground is thin, and dialogue gives way to protest, suppression, and violence.

The wave of George Floyd protests in 2020 is a continuation of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, itself evolving from the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, with its own history of violent outbursts in every decade since, many provoked by police brutality against minorities.

The principle distinguishing characteristic of the current protests in Portland, Seattle, New York, Chicago, and elsewhere is that the movement has general support well outside specific oppressed populations.

I'm not aware of any recent protests (e.g. last 10 years) in the US having the level of violence of these protests[0]. You don't seem to be aware of any either, since you haven't provided any examples, despite telling me how easily they could be found.

[0]: Which include over $500m in damages: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/07/11/federal-government-..., and that is just in one state. So the total is likely billions across the entire US.

One readily findable list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unr...

There are 35 incidents listed from 2010--2020, inclusive. Another 25 dating to 1990, which for some of us is still recent history. Damages for numerous events (in 2020 dollars) is in at least the $1s to $10s of millions of dollars range.

Even the quiescent 1980s sees 8 entries, down from 35 in the 1970s and over 65 listed for the 1960s, suggesting relatively little presentism bias.

Going back further, one finds the behaviour throughout US history, though with some decades standing out especially. The 1860s & 1870s, 1910s & 1920s (often white-on-black violence, including but scarcely limited to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, but also other immigrant and anti-union violence).

The majority of the events from the 20th century onwards, but especially since 1990, are tied either to racial protest or incidents of police brutality or killing, Numerous others to white-nationalist or similar majority-induced violence.

Sufficiently aware?

I've already seen that list. Here's the question I posed.

> What other protests have anywhere near this much violence?

The recent protests/riots have caused at least $500m dollars in damage per Minnesota's own claims. And substantially more if you include everything across the nation. There have also been at least 15 deaths as a result of the riots.

So I pose the question again, what other recent protests have caused anywhere near this amount of violence? From what you have provided, none. Almost no deaths and about a 100th of the property damages. Nothing you provided comes close.

Found a link to a clear shot of one in use: https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/1287911503408988160

It's a Sarah Jeong tweet, even, making it topical to HN and will no doubt get me double the downvotes!

You can easily buy class 3 and 4 lasers which can permanently damage your eyes. I have one for astrophotography alignment. So yes, the protestors are definitely using harmful lasers, as well as the police I’m sure.

https://www.laserpointerpro.com/attribute/class_class-iiib-l...

Good Christ, some of those lasers are just amazingly strong.

You can buy or build a laser that can cause permanent blindness. There is ample evidence of protesters using lasers. Where is your evidence of federal agents using lasers?

If by "consumer" you mean the things sold for presentations, given away as advertising gifts (red ones), then yes. If you mean ones you can easily buy online, they can be quite scary power-wise. (And green ones are an infrared laser sent into a frequency-doubling crystal. A well-made one is well-aligned and has a filter stopping stray IR. A bad one might just pump out a bunch of IR too, without anyone knowing)

Fyi, lasers aren't safe/dangerous because of their power output but because they are so perfectly parallel. The human eye takes diverging light and turns in into a parallel beam to make images. The same lense takes a parallel beam and makes it focus onto a spot. Focusing to a near zero sized spot makes even very low powers blindingly bright...

The same is true for the sun (enormous distance means near parallel rays).

RTFA: It’s not the same, the Navy laser has a distance control that disables it if it’s close enough to damage someone’s eyesight. It’s only usable at long distances.

Diffusion rates are highly dependent on a lot of environmental factors. I doubt they can predict enough of these with enough reliability to ensure they are not causing damage.

Finally, there's zero evidence that laser light sufficient to blind temporarily isn't also sufficient to cause permanent damage.

That’s literally made up. Countless studies are there for the googling.

The Red Cross has held this position for decades.

The human eye (depending on the person) magnifies light 100,000-500,000 times. The inverse square law means that only minor variations in distance can have large differences in effective light (yes, laser irradiance conforms to this law of physics).

As the ICRC points out, the levels to "temporarily blind" are extremely close to the levels that cause permanent eye damage. Handheld rangefinders can and do make mistakes. Safety level ratings are based on a 0.25 second blink response. If the laser misjudges range for just that short of a time because there's an obstacle, unintentional electronic interference, or even incidental atmospheric reflection, the laser output could cause permanent injury.

Corneal reflex and fatigue. Not a lot of research there, but there are indications that while blinking increases in general, corneal reflexes decline which would drastically increase effective exposure. Fatigue is definitely something associated with combat.

Finally, this is NOT theoretical. The military has admitted to injuries to their own troops from its use proving it happens. They would NEVER willingly admit if an enemy were blinded as that would open them up to an international incident and lawsuits.

https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/57jmcz....

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328516-400-should-p...

https://www.longdom.org/open-access/chorioretinal-injury-cau...

Any sources on either of the claims? I know nothing about portland, but you can buy 5W lasers which can easily burn through stuff.