Pain from a distance

"The US military is developing a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from afar to use against protesters and rioters.

The weapon produced 'pain and temporary paralysis' in animals
Documents released under the US Freedom of Information Act show that scientists have received funding to investigate how much pain can be induced in individuals hit by electromagnetic pulses created by lasers without killing them."

www.telegraph.co.uk.../news/2005/03/03/wpep03.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/03/03/ixworld.html

It's nice that they don't want to actually kill protesters, but wouldn't tear gas suffice? Also are protesters usually not handled by local police?

brill

Those beams of pain can be mounted on fast rotating turrets, creating an instant virtual no-go zone , besides tear gas often contain carcinogens. Like every technology it all boils down to responsible and measured respons and many opponents of such technology rather question if the DOD can be trusted to use them responsible rather abuse (torture without physical marks or using double the power output to kill a indiscriminately kill a crowd) the technology itselve wich I think does have the potential to contain riots in a safer manner than rubber bullets for instance....


[edit on 6-3-2005 by Countermeasures]

Of course it will be abused as has everything else that was ever invented.
Everyone's pain threshhold is different so how can they say that "this or that level" won't actually harm or kill someone?