“Non-lethal Weaponry”
Yes, I'd rather be hit with a pain blast than a burst from an M4 Carbine.
Not the problem.
Daily NewsThis will be used to torture.It isn't up for debate. It isn't open for question. No matter how many safeguards we put on their sale.
"Where do I put my finger? There ... OK? Nothing's happening ... is it on?"
"Yes, it's on. Move your finger a bit closer."
"Er ... ow! OW!" Not good. I try again. "OWWW!" I pull my hand away sharpish. My finger is throbbing, but seems undamaged.
I was told people can take it for a second, maximum. No way, not for a wimp like me.
I try it again. It is a bit like touching a red-hot wire, but there is no heat, only the sensation of heat. There is no burn mark or blister.
tested a table-top demonstration model, but here's how it works in the field.A square transmitter as big as a plasma TV screen is mounted on the back of a Jeep.
When turned on, it emits an invisible, focused beam of radiation - similar to the microwaves in a domestic cooker - that are tuned to a precise frequency to stimulate human nerve endings.
It can throw a wave of agony nearly half a mile.
Because the beam penetrates skin only to a depth of 1/64th of an inch, it cannot, says Raytheon, cause visible, permanent injury.
But anyone in the beam's path will feel, over their entire body, the agonising sensation I've just felt on my fingertip. The prospect doesn't bear thinking about.
"I have been in front of the full-sized system and, believe me, you just run. You don't have time to think about it - you just run," says George Svitak, a Raytheon executive.
Silent Guardian is supposed to be the 21st century equivalent of tear gas or water cannon - a way of getting crowds to disperse quickly and with minimum harm. Its potential is obvious.
"In Iraq, there was a situation when combatants had taken media as human shields. The battalion commander told me there was no way of separating combatants from non-combatants without lethal force," Mr Svitak tells me.
He says this weapon would have made it possible because everyone, friend or foe, would have run from it.
In tests, even the most hardened Marines flee after a few seconds of exposure. It just isn't possible to tough it out.
This machine has the ability to inflict limitless, unbearable pain.
What makes it OK, says Raytheon, is that the pain stops as soon as you are out of the beam or the machine is turned off.
This will be used to torture. As the article goes on to say, quoting a goddamn Ph.D. biologist who specializes in how the brain perceives pain, "They are so obviously useful as torture instruments."
Gee Gidge. I got that one first go-round. The damn machine is tuned straight into our pain receptors.
Furthermore, the numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven. Most blokes you know, will be torturing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten. Where can you go from there? Where? Nowhere. Exactly. What we do with the Raytheon ray-gun if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Put it up to eleven. Exactly. One more painful.
Coming soon to an undisclosed location near you. Or a protest. A political rally. Because really, no one cares about those amendments, not like 2 & 5, and maybe 21 ('cause at least then we'll all be drunk, because that's what you really want -- a bunch of drunk people waving guns while staggering about, who can't be compelled to testify.)
There are worse things than dying. Being burned alive is one of them. Being burned alive over and over again and never being able to escape... Don't talk to me about humane weapons which burn people without burning them till you've gone on a run with me and seen what teenager sisters look, feel, sound and smell like who've been burned to death but are still talking to each other because they just don't fucking know they're already dead.
This box is a torture device. It's morally wrong and an abomination upon the face of the earth.
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