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Laser Painting Could Lead to 25-Year Prison Term
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Jan 05, 2005 03:03 PM
from the too-bright-therefore-not-so-bright dept.
from the too-bright-therefore-not-so-bright dept.
lowy writes "According to this USA Today article, a New Jersey man was charged under federal anti-terrorism laws with shining a laser beam at a jet flying over his home. The Feds arrested him after he flashed a police helicopter searching for the source of the beam. He now faces up to 25 years in prison under Patriot Act charges." It seems to be happening around the country, as our earlier post makes clear.
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You mean this article? (Score:5, Informative)
Your Rights Online? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is amazing how often the stories in this section have little, if anything, to do with rights "online." What's even more interesting is how incredibly infrequently the alleged "rights" being violated in these stories are ever anything of the sort - namely "rights."
If you truly believe that you have some sort of God-given/Constitutionally-mandated right to shine a high-powered laser into the cockpit of a 747, then you truly need a reality check.
Re:Your Rights Online? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I agree this is a bit hyped up, but its nice to have some closure on the story.
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My rights online? (Score:5, Insightful)
Was this guy using a laptop while pointing a laser at the plane, or what?
Aside from that - I could care less what this guy gets. Even if I agree with the posters claiming that the pilot could obviously not see the laser - anyone who is flashing a laser pointer off at a POLICE HELICOPTER these days is obviously a complete idiot/jackass. To me this is natural selection in action.
Is this a good trend? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, because we're at war a simple act of (admitedly dangerous) stupidity will get you facing the patriot act.
Hmm.. maybe this isn't such a bad thing. I wonder if they can arrest the guy who weaves down the freeway lane-hopping and tail gaiting under the patriot act too, he treathens my life every day.
Re:Is this a good trend? (Score:5, Funny)
Only if we also castrate them so that they can't breed and make MORE stupid people. Locking people up is a bad idea in general, because you have to then worry about feeding them, sheltering them, etc. Wouldn't it be much better to just kill them outright?
My solution to the prison problem in the US: Stop locking people up locally- instead just put up a big fence around Texas, and let's send all of our criminals there, like the British used to do with Australia. Give them NOTHING. Let them kill each other and steal from each other and defraud each other and shoot lasers at each other as much as they want- I would volunteer to sit on the other side of the fence and shoot anyone who tries to get across. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would proudly serve his country this way.
And all the people who already live in Texas? Well, life's a bitch sometimes, ain't it? Stay on your side of the fence.
After several generations, perhaps Texas could transform itself from the barren wasteland and breeding ground of theives and traitors that it is today into a nation of proud citizens, working for the good of the world, just like Australia. And if that doesn't work, we can just salt the earth, pave the whole state and use it as a parking lot for Mexico.
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Any Excuse to Say "We're Tough on Terror" (Score:5, Insightful)
This says it all::
Back on 9/11, one of my biggest fears was not that terrorists would somehow feel that I was worth picking out of a crowd, but that my government would joyously tear up what remained of the Bill of Rights in an overzealous, misguided attempt to appear to be "doin' sumthin' about terrorism".
I am very sad to see myself proved right.. almost on a daily basis.
I'm confused by the distance (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Laser pointers over 15 miles away - or even nearly 2 miles away - lose a lot of their energy and are no brighter than dim LED bulbs at those distances.
2) It is virtually impossible to track a laser on a cockpit from 15 miles way, or even from 2 miles away.
So what's going on?
Re:I'm confused by the distance (Score:5, Insightful)
Once those drums are beating they won't stop until people are dead and tortured and may lives are made miserable.
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Re:I'm confused by the distance (Score:5, Insightful)
2) It is virtually impossible to track a laser on a cockpit from 15 miles way, or even from 2 miles away.
So what's going on?
From TFA:
They've found some guy who was playing with his laser pointer and they're going to fry him. Doesn't matter whether he was the one they were looking for, doesn't matter whether the guy they were looking for could have done any harm this way if he'd been trying.Christie is going to ``do something about terrorism'', and he doesn't care how many of us he has to kill or imprison to make the rest of us feel safer by advancing his career.
If we're going to start sending people to jail for shining lights at airplanes, maybe we'd be better off without the airplanes. Thanks to these same ``public servants'', it's getting too dangerous to travel by air anymore, anyway.
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Re:I'm confused by the distance (Score:5, Informative)
As a rule of thumb this is about 1.5 millimeters spread to each meter
traveled. Hence at 100 meters the beam will be about 150mm wide which is
just under 6 inches in diameter. Using this formula you can calculate your
beam diameter at different distances.
Oh and semiconductor lasers have a much larger beam spread.
now, if at 100 meters if a laser can damage your eyesight 200 meters it will not. because the amount of laser light entering your eye is dropping extremely fast as the beam spreads further.
will you be "dazzled" by the bright light you see at the opening of the laser? yes, it will make it difficult for you to see who is standing behind that laser, epically if the contrast is high, I.E. completely dark room with little lighting on t he subject and a laser pointed at you. it will certainly not affect your vision at other angles.
I strongly suggest you learn about lasers, they are pretty darn fascinating, you seem to only know a very little about them but try to pass yourself off as an expert.
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Re:I'm confused by the distance (Score:5, Informative)
Laser light can be focused into a nearly parallel beam http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/miscon/miscon4.html [eskimo.com]
But it can't be done perfectly (wave nature of light prevents perfection) and it's rarely done well.
Still, 1.5 mRad sounds high to me.
For a high quality optical communication laser, it would be more like 0.0015 mRad.
Grabbing my pocket laser pointer, and a ruler, I can measure a spot of about 3mm at a distance of 1 meter, and 5 mm at a distance of about 15 meters.
Granted I could easily be off by 2mm, that's still no where near 20mm.
Measuring laser 'dot' size is a simple experiment that I urge anyone who thinks lasers don't spread to try.
-- should you believe authority without question.
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Physicist: Lasers are a poor choice of weapon (Score:5, Informative)
One hell of an aim... (Score:5, Funny)
He knew it was eye unsafe (Score:5, Insightful)
Harsh sentences vs learning (Score:5, Informative)
The man who was arrested was caught because he shined the same green laser into the cockpit of a helicopter that was surveying the area to discover the origin of the laser that temporarily blinded the pilots of the airliner. They were able to find his location because of this, and incidentally he blamed the helicopter lasing on his daughter. So here we have not just poor judgement or a one-time prank, but a guy who was shining a very bright laser (according to article it was used to test fiber optic cables) at pretty much anything that flew overhead. If he had just done it once he likely would have never been caught and it could be written off as poor judgement.
Because of this I think his sentence should be more than just a slap on the wrist, definitely some heavy fines, maybe a few years jail time depending on what motives they discover for his actions. However, if it turns out he was just a jerk, or an idiot, or whatever and wasn't trying to bring down aircraft, then the maximum 25 year sentence is definitely too long. What I fear is that to make an example of him and to stop others who seem to think lasing planes is a fun idea (reports from multiple other airports of similar events) is that the government will hit him with the max or near max penalty.
I have to wonder, making examples of criminals or not, how some judges can justify these extreme jail sentences? The criminal learns his lesson for sure, but is effectively never given the chance to apply that lesson. In 25 years the man will be so old as to almost be ready for social security, and with a criminal record he'll be lucky if greeter at Walmart is even available to him. What the system has done now is taken an otherwise productive (granted rather stupid for his actions) member of society, burned a ton of taxpayer $$ on him for 25 years, then released him to be a further drain on the system.
At what point will someone - the american people, congress, other judges - say enough is enough and start setting limits on jail sentences to times that make sense? If this guy is guilty of nothing more than the airline equivalent of chucking rocks over the freeway as a dumb prank then I'm pretty sure 5 to 10 years in the fed pen will be quite enough to ensure he doesn't shine a laser anywhere again. Even 5 years is a sizable chunk of someone's life, and prison is no fun place to spend it, plus getting one's life back on track after such a sentence will be hard enough. It's time to stop this "War on X" mentality that the justice system has taken and give non-violent offenders a chance to learn from their actions and apply those lessons in their lifetime instead of overcrowding prisons and sucking up taxpayer dollars.
Anyway, this rant is mostly concerned with if this guy turns out to be just a beavis/butthead type who got his hands on a laser and gets the 25 yrs. If he gets a more appropriate sentence length, or if his actions were in fact malicious then I guess this rant is moot. But there seems to be a trend in our courts to just throw people away forever, which in the end really doesn't teach a very long lesson since those people never get out to tell others to not follow their example.
A Laser Exercise - Experts Only! (Score:5, Insightful)
Try to shine that laser at a target the size of a grape. Easy? Okay, make that grape move. Harder, huh? Now make the grape move at 600 miles per hour. Can you still hit it? Now, try doing the same thing to a grape hurtling through space at 600 miles per hour about half a mile away from you. Do you still think you can hit it?
That grape represents the pilot's eye.
Now, try holding your laser on that target for a couple minutes - as long as it takes to blind a person.
Now repeat the exercise to blind the pilot's OTHER eye.
Now do it two more times to blind the co-pilot's eyes.
And you'd better hope that the pilots don't respond to the agony of their retinas sizzling away by putting on sunglasses, or ducking or moving in any way!
This, friends, is the terrorist threat of the week. Please be frightened.
Re:A Laser Exercise - Experts Only! (Score:5, Interesting)
If its coming more or less directly towards you, the apparent velocity goes waay down. And aircraft on approach are not going 600. More like 250.
You don't have to completley 'blind' them, as in burn out their retinas, to be very, very hazardous.
You can try this yourself. Remove the brakes from your car. Drive at high speed, at night, on a crowded road.(Crowded, to simulate the workload of a pilot on approach). Have a friend shine a high power laser into your eyes for a few seconds. (Said friend will probably want to be on an overpass, rather than in the car with you.)
If you live, repeat the exercise a few more times.
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Patriot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ummm.... (Score:5, Informative)
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May I Be the First to Say... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Don't worry guy, we'll never use PATRIOT to prosecute citizens. We'll only use it to fight terrorism." (Imagine it coming from Saddam in South Park.)
Now we're using PATRIOT for day-to-day law enforcement. I'm not saying this guy should not be punished for his stupidity; I'm saying we should all be concerned for the day a National Security Letter and a unmarked van take you away.
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not saying that this sort of behavior shouldn't be punished, what it is saying is that it should be done under existing laws. There's no reason to charge someone with "terrorism" when their conduct is more accurately described as "reckless endangerment", "malicious mischeif", or "interfering with an aircrew".
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you asking for a legal opinion or a moral opinion? Are you driving with your highbeams on to intentionally blind the bus driver?
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, pre- and post-9/11 stories are interesting to read. Post 9/11 stories abound with "terrorists using lasers to possibly down planes" whereas pre-9/11 stories are about mischief, poor planning, and training pilots not to stare at the beam. Funny how things change.
Pre 9/11 laser-plane stories:
Problems with Laser Light Shows [fda.gov]
Outdoor Laser Safety Is in the Hands of the FAA [photonics.com]
As another note, we had some asshat firing a pellet gun at car windows back in the 90's. Someone was caught shining a laser pointer at a vehicle and arrested as a suspect. Funny (and scary) thing was listening to the idiot talking heads on TV speculating if a common laser pointer could shatter a car windshield. Yes, they were serious about it.
Post 9/11, they are going all out to hang some asshat out to dry for screwing with planes. The idiots who do this deserve to be punished, but what it really looks like is lasers are getting set up to be regulated and/or removed from public availability.
What's really interesting is that there is an FAA report (April 2001) documenting at least 150 instances of cockpit illuminations between 1996 and 1999. That's about once a week. It wasn't big news then.
I'd love to get one of those 100mW green lasers to mess around with, but now I can't. I would expect some kind of bill being introduced in Congress soon to address this issue now that they are back in session.
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Re:Lasers are different (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that passing a law in which a particular intent is illegal means that the terrorists can get off if they can plausibly state that their intent was pointing out stars to someone, while passing a law that doesn't take into account intent means that astronomers can accidentally get charged with terrorism and have no recourse.
Long story short, the right answer is to properly design aircraft so that this isn't an issue. An ideal design would include a handful of cameras and VR panorama glasses. Only slide the window shades out of the way if the electronic navigation fails. Even better, it could give you a 360-degree view of the area around the plane, which would have some nice advantages.
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Interesting)
15 miles away and 8000 feet means that the plane needs to drop about 1000 feet per minute for each minute that the plane is in the air. Touch down speed for a big plane like that is probably in the 120-200 mph range. That means the 15 mile approach would take 7 1/2 minutes. That's not al ot of time!
Each second of that last 7 1/2 minutes before touch down the plane has to drop at least 15 feet! Each second!
This is a very dangerous time of the flight. For one or both pilots to be blinded at this juncture - or even imparied slighly - could lead to catrosphe. Imagine the pilot is off just slightly in his approach. The plane drop 16 feet per second, instead of his normal plane of 15 feet per second. That would mean the plane would be 450 feet below sea level when it "gets" to the runway (aka, it crashes well before the runway).
Those 8000 feet and 15 miles numbers make perfect sense for a jumbo on approach.
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Don't be daft (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's the same as pointing a laser pointer at a itchy trigger finger cop.
The guy shouldn't get 25 years, he obviously isn't a terrorist. But i'm now unpatriotic for thinking so.
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Interesting)
Think about this. If the pilot can see the ground from the cockpit (and they can), then someone on the ground can shine a laser in their eye. Your assumption is that the plane was directly overhead. The plane was on approach to a nearby airport and was at very low altitude. One can easily see inside the cockpit from various angles around the plane.
This will likely be settled and the guy will receive minimal if any jail time. But the gov't has to show that it is addressing this issue.
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
The other possibility is that it was a stupid, stupid person who wasn't really thinking about the consequences of what they were doing at the time and there was no premeditated intent to cause a plane to crash. If that is the case, I think 25 years is a bit extreme.
In any case, hopefully a jury will figure out what the case was - as long as it doesn't go before a secret court with hearings closed to the public, then I'm happy.
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now it's on the local news that someone has been trying to do it. The FBI is investigating.
The next night he's out and tries to do the same thing to a helicopter. He's either deliberately trying to do harm to them, or so stupid he should never been allowed to reproduce. Either way, locking him up should be safer for the general public.
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like the patriot act, etc, at all any more than you do. But I'll work to change the law. I won't go do something moronic and then claim no one should be upset because there is also a bad law on the books.
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
The jet, a chartered Cessna Citation, was coming in for a landing last Wednesday with six people aboard when a green light beam struck the windshield three times at about 3,000 feet, according to court documents. The flash temporarily blinded both the pilot and co-pilot, but they were later able to land the plane safely, authorities said.
...
Then, on Friday, a helicopter carrying Port Authority detectives was hit by a laser beam as its crew surveyed the area to try to pinpoint the origin of the original beam.
Oopsie daisy!
kfg: Imagine trying to "bring down" a car with a laser pointer. I'll be you couldn't do it in a Godzillion years.
I imagine it would be much easier than you imagine. A sustained laser at a drivers eyes would make them swerve if not stop dead on the road. A pilot of a passenger plane does not have that luxury.
The guy that did this is a 38 year old asshole, not an innocently playing child, and I'm glad he's going away. If he didn't know this was going to lead to trouble he's also one of the dumbest men in the U.S.
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
But they're talking now about outlawing lasers to the general public?!?! Huh? Because they can be used for this?
OK, outlaw them. They have the slight chance of maybe blinding one of the pilots on approach. (again, another Tom Clancy scenario in a book about using an ultra bright light to bring down an approaching airliner...just like in the same book a 747 pilot crashed his plane into the Capital building in Washington...but I digress......)
But if they could do this, why not outlaw all guns and rifles in the US! I mean, couldn't THESE be used on approaching and departing airliners? A 460 Weatherby Magnum rifle could do some serious damage...maybe bust open a fuel tank if aimed with any degree of accuracy. I mean, if you're going to outlaw a 10 dollar laser pointer, shouldn't a high-powered rifle be in the same boat?
But no no...can't do that can we! We have the NRA...there is no National Laser Association lobby group in Washington looking out for our right to keep and bear lasers!
(is it bear or bare...I can never remember)
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some days I think it would be a lot easier for the govenment to just tell us what we can do. "Ok, all you're allowed to do is go to work, watch TV and shop. Nothing else."
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
My only complaint with this article is that the author does not realize that $500 or so will buy you a VERY powerful laser that is easily capable of damaging the eyes in a heartbeat. But otherwise, a good read.
I am getting very discouraged at the sheer amount of paranoia in our society. Everybody is overreacting to everything and is afraid of their own shadow. My wife is afraid for me to even pull out my Leatherman in public, because she is afraid that other people might thing that I might be a terrorist or some other type of bad guy. Riiiight. Like I could really kill 100 people in a mall with only a 2-1/2 inch blade and a pair of pliers. Except for special circumstances (like on an airplane), you cannot kill 100 people with a pocket knife unless your name is Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris, in which case you don't even need the knife.
Remember: if you walk around in fear, then the terrorists have already won. Think long and hard about where the term "terrorist" came from. I refuse to give them the satisfaction of being afraid.
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Re:Walking in fear (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony here is that it's not the terrorists I'm afraid of, it's our own government. Seems the terrorists have won either way.
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think it's mostly for yucks. 25 years is absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, I bet that's the extent of it. This whole "THEY ARE CRASHING PLANES WITH THEIR LASER GUN" is just more post-911 hysteria. 25 years is a long time. This is an equivalent penalty to MURDER, and this is far from it. I think a stiff fine would be enough to stop folks from doing this.
More importantly, this is just one more case where the PATRIOT act, which gives some constitutionally-questionable powers to law enforcement, for the specific purpose of apprehending terrorists, has been used on someone who isn't a terrorist.
Funny thing is, I saw this on the news like 2 days after I saw a link to one of those uber-laser-pointers that burns holes in plastic cups (I believe I was linked from
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Informative)
another site [skypointer.net] says:
Red laser pointers have grown cheap and ubiquitous, but unfortunately, they are not very effective as sky pointers. In contrast, green laser pointers are very effective because of the eye's greater sensitivity to the 532 nanometer green light. Under dark sky conditions, the beam from a 5 milliwatt green laser pointer creates a dramatic impression, and the beam apparently extends for more than a kilometer. Any bright light source, ranging from light pollution induced sky glow to a crescent moon, will reduce the apparent brightness of the SkyPointer(TM) although the beam will usually remain visible. The light pollution acts in such a way that people closer to you will still see the beam, whereas those further away may have difficulty.
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Informative)
They work quite well too so there's no "it's that star...no no, that one next to the bright on there...no, down further....see it?" With the pointer you just follow the beam upwards. A green lasers beam is quite visible.
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Re:Only 25 years? (Score:5, Informative)
I know the /. article did not provide a link to the actual article, but you're making some rather strong incorrect statements. I did RTFA and (A) the laser light entered the cockpit and temporarily blinded both the pilot and the co-pilot. Apparently either the angle of laser relative to the cockpit was such that it went in, or else there was some unlucky refraction/reflection. (B) There was no concern that this represented someone pointing a gun at the plane, there was concern that terrorists were trying to blind pilots to cause them to crash. Although the investigators did state that they do not believe the actions of the suspect in this case to be terrorist.
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Re:Motive (Score:5, Funny)
I'm pretty sure he wasn't.
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Worse still... (Score:5, Funny)
Evildoer 1: I'm the Disgruntled Postman!
Evildoer 2: Welcome aboard! Meet MurderOne, Manslaughter, Aggravated Assault, and oh- that guy over in the corner is Laser Guy.
Evildoer 1: THE Laser Guy?
Laser Guy: Just give me a laser pointer and i'll - (remembers what he's in for and hangs his head in shame) be almost completely ineffective, but not ineffective enough to stay out of PRISON... *curls up in fetal position and sobs*
Evildoer 2: Yep, that's LaserGuy, all right.
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