But wait - a weapon that makes you feel unbearably hot? Sweet Jeebus, that means the dirty hippies wil all take their clothes off! Think of it, millions of naked hippies swarming our most beloved institutions! The HORROR! The HORROR!

of that?

... under the strobe light"! ( - B-52's )

I'm sure under the wrong circumstances it's going to kill some one.

.

Because it turns out nothing is non-lethal. If it can incapacitate a Mixed Martial Artist fighter, it would kill Grandma. A bean-bag projectile hit someone in the eye and killed him. Tear gas grenades have started many fires. Spider-man type web material (they've experimented with that for real) can suffocate someone if it covers their nose and mouth. Tasers can cause heart attacks or seizures or just recently made a young lady pass out, fall down, and fatally crack her skull on the pavement. Anything that can make you unconscious risks a fatal fall. Anything that doesn't risk death won't stop the biggest, toughest guys. It'll just make them mad.

Few good options to a Taser attack, my ass.

Once she bolted, she directedly limited the options available to the officers. I know that much of DU favors a default assumption of "the cops did wrong as usual," but in this case I don't see how it might have unfolded differently.

She'd already been detained and cuffed. Was it up to the police to secure her to some immobile object to prevent her flight? If she got loose from the grip of "two strong men holding her," what should they have done? Let her flee until she tired herself out? If she'd run off and fallen with her hands bound behind her back, whose fault would her injury have been?


Regardless, I'm sure that you would have done differently and would have been completely measured and righteous in your choice and execution of solutions.

Is Tasing a handcuffed woman really necessary? No options to that? Bullshit.

so he can catch an underweight person with her arms bound behind her back.

Have you ever tried running with your hands locked behind your back? It absolutely robs you of speed.

How many times have you done so? And in what circumstances?

The point--as was made at the time of the incident in several DU threads--is that the woman chose to flee while her hands were bound, presumably knowing that she wouldn't be able to protect herself if she fell.

If the cops had tried to restrain her and had knocked her down in the process, then I'm confident that many here would have condemned them for their brutality (e.g., "why did those big cops tackle a small woman?&quot


Naturally, I have no doubt that you'd have been able to bring the situation to a peaceful, non-violent resolution. It's too bad that you weren't on the scene to advise these cops in real time.

she would have been in better shape to keep her head from hitting the ground cold, than if your CNS is overloaded by electric shock, and you fall with no control at all.

Given all available factors, I would MUCH rather be tackled, than shocked, in that situation.


"presumably knowing that she wouldn't be able to protect herself if she fell. "
lol


I know I could have outrun her. Guarantee it. And that gives me options that don't even include tackling. Hands shackled? Awesome, grab her by the upper arm. You might not 'get control' of her right away, as she might struggle, but you could certainly halt her progress toward the street.

They would no doubt benefit from your fleet-footedness and infallible sense of propriety. In fact, it's amazing that they get anything done at all without you.


Also, your baseless speculation about how she would have fallen "better" if she'd been tackled is simply ludicrous.

to bring them down without a concussion. And, we didn't always wear helmets and pads.

Finally, I never injured anyone, with or without handcuffs.

You're totally FOS.

Unless you have a lot of experience tackling drugged-up, handcuffed criminals fleeing arrest over hard ground, then your alleged experience is simply irrelevant, even though you probably believe that your nonsensical opinion is significant in some way.

Are you a cop who enjoys his taser, or just a really rude taser fan? Go tase yourself and come back and report on the experience.

And come back and report on the experience.


Or don't. I don't care. I figured you out quite a few posts back, and you've been chanting the same nonsense all the while.

If you play football on concrete without helmets, somebody's gonna get hurt.

. . . that I can remember.

there isn't a man or woman in the world who can outrun me with there hands cuffed behind there back.

The idea that this woman had to be tased is ludicrous

They've killed healthy people not on drugs.

Nice strawman, though.

In agreeing with the point, I took issue with one example that weakens the point.


That's more or less an anti-strawman.

That sad accident was the incident I meant. My point about the potential lethality of less lethal weapons doesn't depend on abuse of the weapons. Working exactly as designed can produce accidentally lethal results. You can't know if someone has bad asthma or an allergy that could make tear gas deadly. You can't know if a tear gas grenade fired through a window will bounce into a hamper of laundry and start a fire. That super sticky foam they were working on to immobilize targets could accidentally cover the nose and mouth, leading to suffocation.

Do you remember a case a few years back when the Russian police used "knockout gas" to try to rescue hostages in a theater from a group of terrorists, and many of the hostages died from overdosing on the gas? Part of the problem there was any sleep-inducing gas like that has to be heavier than air or it just floats away. That meant it concentrated closer to the floor. To reach a concentration that would knock out the terrorists who were standing up, it reached a concentration that could kill hostages sitting down. And, of course, the weak and infirm, and anyone with any breathing problems, had a higher risk of death than the physically fitter hostage takers.

To claim it's non-lethal (what a quaint description) is all good and well, but why does a weapon have to be lethal to fuck someone up badly?

Waterboarding, if done right is non-lethal but after a few hundred times it leaves the person with major brain damage. Hey! But nobody got killed did they!

Who the fuck needs this kind of weapon for crowd control?!

the oligarchy

the 1%

those that do thier dirty work

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free... and I will shoot them with my heat ray until they get "A sensation of unbearable, sudden heat".

The one causes flash blindness or makes the iris constrict for very bright transient light. Either way, the person's confused for anywhere from a couple of seconds to a couple of minutes.

The OP is talking about a microwave-based weapon that emits a beam of radiation that's absorbed by the skin and outer layers of tissue and converted to heat. This doesn't primariy cause confusion, it causes transient pain.

Confusion stops a person. Pain causes them to retreat or dodge.

This particular weapon's been in the news for a year or two, from proposal to development to prototype. But it's not been in production, much less deployed anywhere.

I remember seeing a prototype on TV in the 90s or early 00s.

A couple thousand or more people all herded into close proximity, and all of sudden part of the heard will be trying to get away as fast as possible.

It won't be pretty.

On some close to extinct species (those that haven't died off on their own...you know the Polar Bears and sea creatures the navy has not successfully destroyed with the f'n underwater experimentation or HAARP).

It sounds like a menopausal hot flash. Have they tested it on women over 50? A lot of us may be able to work right through it.

Seriously, this device sounds very clever, but don't they all? People will find a way to deal with it. I hope so anyway, if local law enforcement plans to use it against non-violent protesters.

It would get pulled off the shelf at Target for not meeting CPSC standards.

This device has been in development for more than a decade. The story's wrong to say they are "revealing" it now - they revealed the thing quite a long time ago.

Apparently the DoD's gretest anti-occupy technology is their ability to travel back in time to start programs long before Occupy existed.

Last edited Mon Mar 12, 2012, 09:24 PM - Edit history (1)

Feeling a bit gas-lighted for a minute.

I think you can bank on this being used on American civilians who are peacefully protesting. Which protest movement is ongoing right now is beside the point.

This will be used on Occupy protests, and similar protests. That's the point.

You are claiming it will now be used on Occupy protesters.

It's been operational since the 1990s. If you were correct, they would have already used it.

Not everything is about Occupy.

1953 Version:



2012 Version:

What does it do to metal? Electromagnetic beams are widely known to interact strongly with any conductor. Metal is a very good conductor, much better than the salt laden liquids in a persons body. Chain mail anyone, a type of Faraday Cage? Parabolic reflectors to beam it back to the attackers? Since the frequency of the beam is reasonably known, it should be fairly easy to come up with simple stuff to defend against it.

It's called a "Faraday suit"

How much they goin' for on eBay or craigslist?

at the moment they got to radio security staff when they want to harass me.

this should make life much easier for them and save on staff.

The Italian news agency RAI did extensive reporting on it. The battlefield version of this thing would fry people down to the size of a sack of groceries.

Of course, nothing in the US press.

The waves penetrate about 1/64th of an inch into your skin. Pacemakers are far deeper.

Or external insulin pumps... or whatever the hell Dick Cheney has.

which is a function of the length of the wire, the frequency of the energy and the power of the energy.

I strongly suspect it won't do anything to a hearing aid or other medical device, but I haven't disassembled all of them to find out.

A sad state of affairs when you have to think of these things before going out and exercising your civil rights.

You can't expect people with hearing aids, insulin pumps and so on to never walk near a microwave oven with a misaligned door. So the devices themselves have to undergo testing in the "microwave" range, and dealing with more watts than the Active Denial System. Not exactly the same frequency, but probably close enough.

That protestors are being shot at with anything at all.

people are talking as if protesters are being shot, when they are not. Nor have they been shot with this despite the fact that it existed and was fielded before Occupy existed (It was tested in Iraq, deployed and then recalled from Afghanistan).

I have said nothing about it being used on Occupy. There are plenty of other protestors out there. I have not said it was designed for Occupy either.

As for why it exists, the DoD was hoping they could use it to disperse mobs attacking military installations overseas. Think back to the storming of the US embassy in Tehran. The only things our soldiers could have used against the mob were bullets. Responding with bullets causes a lot of diplomatic trouble, which is why the soldiers guarding our embassy didn't shoot. The hope was that this system would let them use something less than bullets but much more effective than tear gas at dispersing crowds (which isn't that effective against a dedicated, angry mob).

As for use in the US, the DoD won't because there's lots of federal law blocking it. That doesn't mean DHS couldn't buy or borrow some.

DHS on the other hand....

It will be used against American citizens on American soil.

Cataracts all round guys!

Put this up against a monk who's willing to immolate himself with gasoline, or against someone willing to run into a fire and die in order to accomplish something...

sorry, it's more torture for citizen protests - it has trivial or no value in real warfare

The right seems to be profoundly convinced that PTSD is the best thing to happen to humanity since Jeebuz.

"Maximum setting. If you'd fired this, you would've vaporized me."
"It's my first ray gun."

just as they freely administer tasers, etc.

They've opened a door they will never shut, unfortunately, no matter how much suffering it brings. Power is irresistable to monsters.

Don't like what Bank of America is doing? Don't like your house being foreclosed? Don't like your jobs going to China? Don't like the Govt telling you if can use birth control? Don't like the Govt telling you what you can do in your own bedroom?

Too bad. Here comes the heat ray.

"I guess this is their answer to the occupy movement..."

I would imagine that between R&D, prototype testing, and actual development, this thing has been in development years before OWS had begun.

Doesn't have enough energy to break chemical bonds, thus can't damage DNA.

Also, only passes about 1/64th of an inch into your skin, so too shallow.

They're here to protect us, don't you know?

protests, I'm going to start carrying a potato and some butter. At least I can get a good meal out of their less-than-lethal weapons, right?

As a test of this device, they tried to cook a turkey. It didn't work, since the energy doesn't penetrate very far. So your spud would still be raw.

Just what the MIC needs to calm the rabble rousers.

dark periods in world history. Torture devices to ensure everyones compliance. How can Anyone condone this?
This is where our tax money goes? Finding ways to force people to obey whatever they are told to. Don't you see what is wrong with all of these devices? Protests are legal and necessary. Having a population of people that are afraid of their government is tyranny. I am disgusted that anyone would defend any of this torture technology. Our masses are being disenfranchised, forced to pay for their tortue devices instead of universal health care or increased democracy or human rights. DU is sure as hell not the site (a totally different type of democrat) than it originally was. What is there to debate? Dick Cheney must love this bullshit.

How hot would gold earrings, necklace, rings etc. get?

Also, the article says that his device has been tested on over 11,000 people with 2 people needing medical attention afterward. It didn't say if they were voluntary participants. I wonder who they were.

What if you have a butane lighter in your hand? If it can make your skin feel hot, it can probably set some material on fire. And if you're standing next to a car or a building, could you get a reflection that concentrates it to levels that produce second or third degree burns?

which could could start a fire. Or the metal might just get so hot it produces a serious burn.

And start making healing the top priority.

...with a hood, with a mesh in front of the eyes that is designed to repel microwaves, just like in our microwave stoves at home.

They could be manufactured cheaply, and could be folded down into a very small little pouch until needed.