US Air Force unveils hand-held laser gun

25 November 2005
US Air Force unveils hand-held laser gun

By Michael Sirak JDW Staff Reporter
Washington, DC

The US Air Force has unveiled its first hand-held laser weapon that gives security forces a non-lethal option for controlling crowds and protecting areas like checkpoints, according to service officials.

While only in prototype form and years away from fielding, the weapon, known as the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response (PHaSR) system, holds great promise, they said.

The PHaSR is about the same size and weight of a fully loaded M60 machine gun - around 9 kg - but shoots a low-power beam of laser light instead of bullets. The light it generates is capable of temporarily impairing an individual's vision, much like the disorienting glare one sees when looking into the sun, said the officials.

Upon completion of testing, one prototype will be handed over to the Department of Defense's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) and the second to the National Institute of Justice (NIJ): the law enforcement arm of the US Department of Justice. Both organisations support the programme, with the latter interested in its civil applications. http://www.janes.com/security/law_enforcement/news/jdw/jdw051125_2_n.shtml

What the hell is the Air Force doing with a crowd control weapon?

Something doesn't add up here.

Seriously, Space Command is a major U.S. Air Force command.

for years... star wars rings any bells? So they managed to get one to do this, since it is their field, aka laser, makes sense

the American people who refuse to submit to their long term plans.

They'll use it for a few years, then discover that it's not as "non-leathal" as they thought.

next will be "disintegrate".

x(

that spells "phaser"

carry clear warnings about aiming them at peoples eyes. (irreverable corneal damage, I believe). Will those Crowd Control troops be suitably warned?

pnorman

n/t

Lasers for crowd control means protesters will probably be targets now, to me. With the way people are treated by law enforcement today, news like this reinforces my concerns.

Similar instruments leave no lasting eye damage:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8275&feedId=online-news_rss20

<snip>
Pulsing green light

Neil Davison, another expert at Bradford University, says the situation in Iraq may encourage the US to push for the development of less-than-lethal laser weapons. "They already use bright white lights at vehicle checkpoints in Iraq to dazzle drivers who are approaching too fast," he says.

Several commercial systems capable of temporarily dazzling a target exist. LE Systems, based in Connecticut, US, for example, makes the Laser Dazzler, which resembles an ordinary torch and emits a low power pulsing green laser light. The company says this device has been tested extensively and been shown to cause no lasting eye damage.

The possibility of causing lasting eye damage can be reduced by diffusing the laser beam or rapidly moving it across the target with a series of mirrors.<snip>