Committee hears bill to criminalize shining lasers at officers or aircraft

The Committee on Judiciary heard Senate Bill 156, which would create an offense for knowingly directing light from a laser pointer at a law‑enforcement officer engaged in the performance of duties or at an aircraft in flight or its flight path.

Jason Thompson, on the bill brief, said the statute would make directing a laser pointer at an on‑duty law‑enforcement officer a class A person misdemeanor and directing a laser pointer at an aircraft in flight a severity level 9 person felony. He said the aircraft provision would not apply to personnel authorized by an aircraft manufacturer or the Federal Aviation Administration to perform research, development or flight testing. "Laser pointer is defined...as a device that emits light amplified by the stimulated emission of radiation that is visible to the human eye," he said, and that the bill would take effect July 1 if adopted.

Proponents from law enforcement described the operational danger. Sage Hill, president of the Kansas State Troopers Association and an air‑unit pilot, told the committee he has experienced laser strikes while flying and that the number of incidents is rising. He gave FAA figures he said were recent: "there were 154 strikes in Kansas, which is pretty high and there were 12,000 some nationwide." Hill described how a laser can flood an aircraft camera and be painful and disorienting to pilots, especially at night when pilots rely on dark‑adapted vision.

Ed Klump, representing the Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police and allied organizations, supported the bill and referred the committee to research on injury risk from lasers; he said officers have increasingly encountered powerful handheld devices that can cause temporary blindness, distraction or retinal damage. Proponents emphasized that without a state law mirroring the federal prohibition it is difficult for street officers to make immediate arrests for the conduct when no other offense is present; instead, they said, incidents must often be referred for federal investigation.

Committee members asked about related federal law and about technical details such as whether the color of the laser matters and whether unmanned aircraft (drones) would be covered. Witnesses said federal law exists and that the bill's language was modeled after it; proponents recommended consistency with federal definitions and noted that color is not the relevant factor — intensity and beam power are.

No opponents were recorded at the hearing and written proponent testimony was filed. The committee closed the SB 156 hearing without taking action; proponents said the measure would provide state prosecutors and local officers more accessible enforcement tools.