if they point one of those things at me and try to fire it, i’m shooting back.

John M–

I don’t necessarily mean shoot back with deadly force. A good slingshot with a projectile of scatalogical origin will do just fine.

A weapon such as this one would not only be useful to control rioters. It could be used to assert absolute control over a swath of territory, and then subsequently manipulate the aftermath later. You could flush out the residents of, say, a compound of religious nuts, and then open fire on them as they tried to escape. (Oh wait, did that already happen?) Or you could corrall them, like a trampling herd, into a detention situation. Entire groups of undesirable people could just “disappear” if the weapon’s use were coordinated properly.

Or perhaps more realistically, you can point it at a person’s home, and send their family running out screaming in agony. Then you could do what you wanted to with them on the doorstep. Arrest them? Detain them? Shoot them on the spot? Whatever. A device like this makes raids into your home a heck of a lot quicker, quieter, and more assured of the outcome that the State wishes.

Anyway, press wouldn’t want to get too close to a zone of pain, that’s for sure.

And, moreover, if you happen to have any piercings or implants, such a pain weapon would not just cause pain, but serious burns. Goths and punks would get it worse than hippies, Scott, be warned.

Finally, what happens to a person’s brain when its been in the pain zone? The brain has the consistency of a wet loaf of bread. It’s mostly water. The microwaves would, in all likelihood, cause the H-O bond stretching. This would create heat. The brain would cook in a subtle way. It is well known that cells have a very limited range of tolerances for higher temperature, otherwise, if above it they commit suicide.

Speculative, I know, but maybe one additional benefit of microwave pain weapons is that it has a subtle lobotomizing effect on the people under its control. Lobotomized people do not agitated protestors make, they make great, compliant, docile slaves.

A weapon like this is like Sauron retrieving his Ring of Power. Once he gets it, there’s no stopping him, and we’re all doomed. The allure of power with a weapon like this is too great for it not to be used as in the situations I described. That’s why I fear and dread the decades ahead.

Weapons like these are not necessarily non-lethal. As Scott has frequently pointed out, there are numerous deaths by Taser, now, via cops who think that it’s their gawd-given right to fry the heck out of suspects until they stop convulsing defiantly.

I suspect, but do not know for certain, that many of these RF weapons have a little dial where all you need to do is shift the frequency a little bit to achieve different effects within the radius of the beams. Nudge it one way and their internal organs get liquefied. Turn it another and they all lose control of their bowells. Turn it another way and they just sit down and start feeling uncontrollably listless and lethargic.

The pain thing is probably just the two second sales pitch for a weapon like this.

RE: private use of such a thing. Well, you see, it’s no longer private if such weapons are developed with public money. And the use of such a weapon is not private if used on public property, or if it’s rays extend beyond your own property line. It sure would be nice if I could have me one of these toys in a genuinely voluntary and minarchist society, but then, my neighbors would also be free to jeer at me from the street corner for being so rediculous.