Our esteemed colleague Michael Grunwald rides to Rand Paul’s defense:
Of course he’ll take the usual Washington abuse for ignoring senatorial groupthink, but Paul was actually right to vote no. As the old saying goes: You don’t have to make a federal case of it. And I’ll out-extreme the extremist: States shouldn’t be legislating solutions to the laser-pointer menace, either.
You shouldn’t have to drink tea to recognize that government can’t fix every problem. And those of us who actually believe government can make a difference should recognize it gets a bad name sticking its nose into issues where it can’t.
I’m not trying to deny the seriousness of this particular problem or the idiocy of these particular idiots. Pilots say they can be temporarily blinded when lasers are beamed into their cockpits, and the FAA says it’s happened 2,836 times in two years. This sounds like a genuine safety hazard. And it sounds like the laser-pointer industry needs to do a better job educating consumers about the dangers of its products. So allow me to start this education process:
Hey, idiots! Stop pointing lasers at planes!
Go ahead and read the whole thing.