Yup, if there were more predatory problems, I am sure he would've turned to other more reliable means to predator proof his bird run. The coon was the first and only critter to have overcome the other obstacles (chicken wire was not one of them), and since he left, there've been no further intrusions.

I'll reiterate, the coon most likely did not suffer permanent damage, just had a miserable night holed up in some nearby tree waiting for his eyeballs to recover. He didn't get a long enough blast to suffer permanent damage in our opinion.

In any case, that wasn't what he got the laser for, it just happened to be handy at the time and got the job done. He's also into communications, and the pointer gets used for diagnosing fiber-optic problems, and he also does some amateur astronomy stuff that he uses it for. But being the gizmo geeks we are, we had to see what else it was capable of, within reason.

Just shooting the critter was problematic, and not very practical. Coons is coons, and they will get into things from time to time, and like I say, he learnt his lesson without undo suffering. Having taken the same hit as he did, it's highly doubtful he suffered any worse than us. After all, the government uses the same thing for driving birds and other critters from airports and such.