I have seen laser pointers marketed to military personnel on the pretense they are going to be used for presentations and maybe pointing out the enemy but I am sure they get pointed at people's eyes.
That said laser pointers are unlikely to cause permanent harm unless somebody is looking at you through binoculars or similar instruments.
What's prohibited are "laser weapons specifically designed, as their sole combat function or as one of their combat functions, to cause permanent blindness to unenhanced vision." "Permanent blindness," in turn, is defined as "irreversible and uncorrectable loss of vision which is seriously disabling with no prospect of recovery."
First, ordinary laser pointers are not "specifically designed...to cause permanent blindness."
Second, it's not apparent to me that ordinary laser pointers are generally capable of causing permanent, as opposed to temporary, blindness.
Third, it's also not apparent to me, without researching the issue, that the Protocol even applies to civilian use.
To be sure, whether ordinary laser pointers are up to the task proposed is a separate question. But, if so, their use would not seem to violate the Protocol.
For your last sentence, I’m not sure what you really mean, may be you don’t mean physical capability but more like by chance it’s unlikely.
Laser can be very dangerous, especially those used in labs. I remember in my undergrad optics labs we were all told about it’s danger by telling us a story that someone setting up an array forgetting to turn off the laser (not visible spectrum so can’t tell by the color light ray as usual) and got blinded in one eye because that eye enters the optical path momentarily.
And the main reason laser is so dangerous and useful is it’s coherence. That gives us those unique colors and also interference pattern when it’s shining on objects, and also the highly directional beam. That beam is almost perfectly parallel so no matter how far your target is, the intensity is still almost the same.
That’s why in that article, they mention the ability to target things. If you can aim accurately, it is deadly.
But would Russia claim it was indeed a war just so they could prosecute it as a war crime?
Same goes for shooting the officers in the knees. Since it supposedly isn't a war, these measures are merely self protection against an unprovoked aggressor.
Which is a reason for civilians to not get involved.
If you are an irregular combatant they can execute you and nobody can do anything about it.
When Russia first tried to invade Chechnya they sent soldiers who were not in uniform and denied responsibility for them, the Chechens said got on TV and said they would execute them if Russia did not accept them as their soldiers. That is how war goes.
No, that just means that the military can take over civilian functions (law enforcement) and certain rights are suspended (curfew, habeus corpus, etc). It does not classify civilians as soldiers. I’m not sure how it works with “territorial defenders” aka militias. Probably a gray area.
This is a dumb suggestion by someone who is probably 10000 miles away. If a weakling 10 dollar laser pointers could defeat warplanes, every military would be extremely concerned with defending against them and developing laser weapons. But it's not a viable tactic for several reasons.
Pointing a laser pointer at an aircraft is not a good idea because it has potential to annoy or distract a pilot. It's not a real lethal threat, it's merely something other than completely harmless.
As per the very relevant comment:
"The 1995 Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons (Protocol IV to the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons) prohibits use of blinding laser weapons as a means or method of warfare as well as their transfer, to any state or non-state actor."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Wea...
I have seen laser pointers marketed to military personnel on the pretense they are going to be used for presentations and maybe pointing out the enemy but I am sure they get pointed at people's eyes.
That said laser pointers are unlikely to cause permanent harm unless somebody is looking at you through binoculars or similar instruments.