Pentagon gave it to them. The heads of both these orgs are incompetent and should be impeached.

I thought I read that they borrowed it from the actual military, which tends to be a little bit more cautious with these things.

Lasers are not particularly controlled by regulation. Most people in the US can own a class 4 laser if they want.

Also, most laws that do restrict weapons specifically exempt government law enforcement anyway.

Okay, but they're not like styropyro on YouTube here... presumably the DHS people are using the whatever government weapons contractor made device, which is going to come with more nuance, controls, targeting system, etc. than whatever someone might buy off the shelf or cobble together independently.

I think it might have actually been DOD people operating the system even, but there's conflicting reporting and I'm not sure. Either way it seems like there was at the very least some kind of coordination failure.

The former TV personality slash alcoholic slash sexual predator that is running the DoD probably gave it to DHS at the request of the cowboy hat wearing psychopathic domestic animal killer that runs that agency.

Using absurd language to describe absurd people is a rhetorical device that is suitable for HN.

If the administration hired serious people who don’t wear costumes and act ridiculous to get publicity, I wouldn’t have to write absurd descriptions about them.

Jim Mattis and John Kelly were serious people who did not wear costumes and treated their offices and the people below them with respect. They were Trump’s first SecDef and DHS Secretary, respectively.

This absurd language idea is good. Let me have a try...

Clearly everyone except the nerdy web developers that populate HN is completely incompetent. The aforementioned web developers though - they know everything due to all the time they spend on Twitter. I wonder why they aren't in charge of the country, must be a great conspiracy.

It's pretty directly relevant to "homeland security", anti-terrorism, etc. I wouldn't say that's the problem.

Make no mistake, the actual drone terrorism is coming. I guess you could say that only the actual military should handle it, but... Why?

I may have foolishly accepted the premise of incompetence in posing my question. Basically it seemed to me like the complaint was untrained/experienced (incompetent) people were deciding/deploying the fancy laser munition. That seemed worth of rebuke. After some brief searching I'm less clear about who took what action.

It seemed more like giving police forces (or allowing them to buy) APCs, armored Humvees, etc. Less trained/experienced people using things made for a different use case, ultimately exposes the people to more risk. Instead of say coordinating with the DOD to deploy the system and personnel accepting requests or being the decision maker for "take action" after some level of expertise in the area of evaluating targets and whatever else need be considered has also contributed to the process.

I don't know how it does work, let alone have enough context to imagine how it should. While I do agree "things to deter drones are appropriate border defense tools," the rest of the details painted a picture that seemed less reasonable.

Mostly agree. I wouldn't give high powered lasers to local police forces either. My point is that the problem is less to do with lasers and anti-drone tech in particular than with incompetence and abuse of power generally. Lasers are just the way it manifested in this instance.

Nuclear weapons are also directly relevant to "homeland security" (at least as a deterrent), yet I doubt many would be in favor of putting them under DHS as well.

That both of those are labelled "homeland security" is almost a coincidence. Strategic security vs a fancy brand name for counter-terrorism.

Nuclear weapons are controlled more specifically by law. Lasers are not.