I Feel Warm Already

I'm glad to know the military is busily devising disturbing new weapons for dispersing pesky crowds like war protestors "hostile crowds."

Called the Active Denial System, [the heat-ray gun] projects an invisible high energy beam that produces a sudden burning feeling.

…The prototype weapon - called Silent Guardian - was demonstrated at the Moody Air Force Base in Georgia.

A beam was fired from a large rectangular dish mounted on a Humvee vehicle. The beam has a reach of up to 500 metres (550 yards), much further than existing non-lethal weapons like rubber bullets. It can penetrate clothes, suddenly heating up the skin of anyone in its path to 50C.

But it penetrates the skin only to a tiny depth - enough to cause discomfort but no lasting harm, according to the military.

A Reuters journalist who volunteered to be shot with the beam described the sensation as similar to a blast from a very hot oven - too painful to bear without diving for cover.

That sounds charming. At the very end of the article: "Manufacturers say this avoids injury, although long-term effects are not known." So the military's intent to use it in war theaters could conceivably be as swell an idea as a little product you might have heard of called Agent Orange.

(H/T to Mr. Shakes.)