The Red Cross still considers them to be dangerous.
The human eye (depending on the person) magnifies light 100,000-500,000 times. The inverse square law means that only minor variations in distance can have large differences in effective light (laser irradiance conforms to this law). Rangefinders aren't perfect and the smaller they are, the harder it is to detect the range accurately (inverse square law again). Laser damage happens in just 0.25 seconds, so even a tiny mistake can have catastrophic consequences.
The US military has admitted to their own soldiers being hurt, but it would be an international incident to admit it happened to someone they were fighting, so I doubt you'll see them releasing any stats about that.
The human eye (depending on the person) magnifies light 100,000-500,000 times. The inverse square law means that only minor variations in distance can have large differences in effective light (laser irradiance conforms to this law). Rangefinders aren't perfect and the smaller they are, the harder it is to detect the range accurately (inverse square law again). Laser damage happens in just 0.25 seconds, so even a tiny mistake can have catastrophic consequences.
The US military has admitted to their own soldiers being hurt, but it would be an international incident to admit it happened to someone they were fighting, so I doubt you'll see them releasing any stats about that.
https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/57jmcz....
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328516-400-should-p...
https://www.longdom.org/open-access/chorioretinal-injury-cau...