New laws regulating flashlights

Registration, liscencing, permits, Lumen Restrictions, scary thoughts in the flashlight community. Technology is evolving rapidly, and flashlight technology is no exception. Currently flashlights on the market today are limited to about 500 lumens, but already there are a few exceptions. Surefire's beast at 2000 lumens is a good example. However these superflashlights arte currently too expensive for most people to afford and therefore very few are in circulation. However as technology continues to evolve, and to become more available, it is not out of the realm of possibility to have handheld illumination tools iin the next few years issuing forth 1000, 5000, or even 10000 lumens and available at a somewhat affordable price. These light are often referred to as tactical lights or weopenlights (words that inspire terror in the hearts of liberal politicians). If people can use these lights as self defense tools, criminals can also use them. When lights reach the point that they are small enough to be easily concealed but have the power to put someone on the ground or to cause car accidents when shined upon moving cars I belive our government officials will start to take notice. It seems that it is not just a question of if, but of when laws will appear on the books regulating these instruments.

Hmmm, well you can pick up a handheld, rechargeable, 1 million candlepower spotlight for under $20 at most hardware stores. Basically a handheld car headlamp - not really a flashlight per se, but seems to fit the bill for output. For a real schorcher, there's also the 10 million CP 100W Thor spotlight. I don't see these being regulated, at least not in north america.

Sounds like someone has been sitting too close to their lithium batteries..
One licence to operate the vehicle and another to turn on the headlights?
Then comes the all mighty tire iron, wait until the officials discover those things can be used as weapons, and they are standard issue to anyone who purchases a car..
While I do understand what it is you are saying, I am less sure there is even the remotest possibility of it becoming truth.
Welcome to CPF! It sounds like you have quite a bit of flashlight knowledge already, there is plenty more to follow!

we could call are surefire a search light not a tactical light. the big flashlight compenys will get around it with the way the word it. things like search light,tool,and so on.with so many uses for lights it would be very hard for them to regulat it.the hid headlights i think are to bright,but they are with in the law.

You know, you are probably right, but I personally can not make a big deal out of that possibility, other than to say that we need to be very careful about who we vote for, and what they stand for, and to use another and, we need to be responsibly about how we use our high powered lights. What more needs to be said?

Bill

kudu said:

weopenlights (words that inspire terror in the hearts of liberal politicians).

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"weopenlights" would probably only inspire terror in a grade school teacher. :naughty:

Here in the Kommunist Republik of New Jersey, I predict its only a matter of time before we see stupid laws restricting flashlights. I'm dead serious. This state is made up mostly of liberal lawyers and scared soccer moms - a terrible combination. I'd say within 5 years there will be some kind of law/statute/regulation that limits flashlights some particular way....

I also predict that it will start out innocuously - such as something that says that anyone caught using the beam from a flashlight for any unprovoked offensive reason intent on causing harm will be prosecuted with such-n'-such a penalty. No one will seem to mind, but thats' just where it will start....

EngrPaul said:

"weopenlights" would probably only inspire terror in a grade school teacher. :naughty:

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:lolsign: That was funny.

Other countries already have some regulations. In Germany, it's illegal to mount lights on guns, so I'm told (provided you are even able to legally own a gun).

Also, there was an article recently in the leading German consumer reports magazine with a test of common mainstream flashlights. One big block in the article was devoted to the dangers of high brightness LEDs. According to this (the opinion of one eye doctor they interviewed), the high percentage of high energy blue photons is more damaging to the childish eye than normal incans. The best flashlight in the test, a Nuwai 2-stage Lux3 (forgot the model number), was graded down since of lack of warnings of this 'fact' in the manual :thumbsdow. Frankly, I doubt that it matters if a child's eye are blasted with 50 lumens from an incan or an LED; we all seem to agree that a low powered light is the right thing to give to a small child, since they cannot control the urge to look into the beam for longer times.

well....if we can buy short arc tank lights and VSS search lights from ebay...i doubt any law can restrict that...


unconditioned "light"ing warfare....1,000,000+ lumen lights shooting photons at each other....


Good point tho, but another theory would be the technology would evolve to a point then slow down....like the computer industry....processor speed can only go so high...

Scary, just imagine having to Licence your torch

Another fine example ( if it comes to be law) of the 'nanny state' or country we live in :sigh: :shakehead .... IMO

kudu said:

Registration, liscencing, permits, Lumen Restrictions, scary thoughts in the flashlight community.

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They have been around for decades. When I was around 17 or 18 (don't ask how long ago that was) I was driving my car in really bad fog just trying to get home safely. By chance I happened to have a handheld spot/flood light that plugged into a cigarette lighter socket. I went ahead and used it and hung it out the window as close to ground level I could instead of using my headlights which were useless in the fog.

Officer friendly spotted me and pulled me over. I was informed that using the spotlight was illegal from my car. I explained I was just trying to see in the fog and get home safely (less than a mile away at this point). I didn't get a ticket, but the officer was not sympathetic and informed me I was not to use it while trying to get home safely.

I lost all respect for authority and the law that evening.

username5 said:

They have been around for decades. When I was around 17 or 18 (don't ask how long ago that was) I was driving my car in really bad fog just trying to get home safely. By chance I happened to have a handheld spot/flood light that plugged into a cigarette lighter socket. I went ahead and used it and hung it out the window as close to ground level I could instead of using my headlights which were useless in the fog.

Officer friendly spotted me and pulled me over. I was informed that using the spotlight was illegal from my car. I explained I was just trying to see in the fog and get home safely (less than a mile away at this point). I didn't get a ticket, but the officer was not sympathetic and informed me I was not to use it while trying to get home safely.

I lost all respect for authority and the law that evening.

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LOL, so basically the way he said it. I could stand on a street corner and shine a spotlight around, but i can't sit in my car and shine a spotlight out of it?

Every state in the U.S. has a motor vehicle code. Within that motor vehicle code are many sections and paragraphs on reflectors, lighting, headlights, etc. Also sections on how you can't point a bright light source into a public roadway, etc. Exactly how visible your brake lights need to be. How far forward your headlights need to shine. How many side marker lights you need on your trailer. Blah, blah, blah...

In all seriousness, you don't want someone being temporarily blinded by another driver and swerving into oncoming traffic. The intent is safety. How it is applied or enforced (or lack thereof) is another matter.

:candle:

I don't see a Surefire flashlight with 2000 lumens on their website. Care to link to it, I'd like to see it.

On Hilton Head Island in South Carolina it is illegal to shine a flashlight at a sea turtle. The fine for a first offense is $895. The light can confuse baby turtles, so they go inland rather than out to sea. If that happens, they die.

At the risk of sounding like a "flashlight hermit," I speak out on what I believe is the best course of action we flashaholics can take to protect our flashlight freedoms: keep our lights to ourselves. By keeping our lights, I mean we should be very selective whom we show off our pocket rockets to, not how or where we use our lights, that's a different topic altogether. The more people we "convert" into flashaholics, the more exposure we give to the general population. While we know how to use (and not use) and appreciate our lights, Joe Schmoe may becomed overwhelmed by that new Raw or P1 he got from his buddy and start flashing it in the most inappropriate places at the most inopportune times. Suck wrecklessness is what usually sets off some well-meaning but misdirected liberal lawmaker into action.

The bottom line is that the more people know about our flashlights, the greater the chance of abuse by uncultured idiots. Just my 2Cs...

It's the classic "dual-use" problem. Just because items like tire irons can be used for both bad things (fwapping people) and good things (fixing cars) doesn't mean we need to outlaw them entirely - we just need to outlaw their bad uses. (See post #3). And there are already laws against the kind of bad uses - like assault and battery - that you'd use tire irons for.

It's the same for a flashlight: it's not the light that's bad, it's how you use it. If you're using a flashlight to light the path on your nightly stroll, you'll be just fine; jump out of a dark alley way and shine it in someone's eyes before you rob them and you're going to jail. Existing laws cover do a fine job of dealing with this sort of thing. I can't see the need for any new ones.

(Two points if you spotted the flashaholic reference in the first paragraph. Actually, "battery" wasn't that hard to spot, so you only get one point.)

- FITP

AAAHHHH, weapons.
Here in South Australia it is illegal to carry an offensive weapon. Since most items are not defined as weapons this can lead to some selective enforcing and may lead to some interesting complexities. The best defense to carrying a knife is to say you use it to cut food--making at a tool and not a weapon.
And a quote from today's paper
" A woman used her four-week old baby as a weapon in a domestic dispute, swinging the infant through the air and striking her boyfriend with the child, authorities said."
I guess now I'll have to campaign to have all women registered to carry an offensive weapon before they become pregnant!?
Greg
(with part of his tongue firmly in cheek)