3/1/08

What about the other applications?

The military has developed a heat ray gun, and 60 Minutes has done a story on it. Now pay attention because 60 Minutes is perhaps one of the last remaining vestiges of what was known as ‘investigative reporting’. I haven’t seen their story, but you can see the clip CBS has released here.

“You have to feel the ray gun to believe it,” says 60 Minutes correspondent David Martin, speaking about a non-lethal weapon the Pentagon has developed, “and there’s only one way to do that.”

Martin was reportedly “zapped” 17 times for this piece, demonstrating the effects, as well as the possibility that a person could reduce the impact with shields of various materials.

“The gun is really an antenna which shoots out this very high-frequency radio beam that penetrates the skin to a depth of 1/64 of an inch, which is just deep enough to hit the nerves,” says Martin. “And it creates this instantaneous sensation of heat which makes anyone who is hit with it try to get out of the way as fast as possible.

“And the second you do get out of the way, the pain goes away,” Martin continued. “And the point is that this gun, which has a range of roughly half a mile - the exact range is classified - can make you stop whatever it is you’re doing.”

It seems that is the intended benefit of this weapon, which Martin says causes the sensation of being scalded with hot water.

He asks, “How many innocent lives have been lost by someone approaching a check-point and not heeding the warning signs that American soldiers were giving them …? Now you have this gun. If you shoot that ray gun at someone and they keep coming you can safely assume that they have evil intent and have cleared the way to use more lethal force, which would be their rifle.”

I don’t know who was interviewing Martin for this clip, but of course they were both serious as heart attacks discussing this new weapon. When she asks Martin to discuss how this might be used, he brightens right up. It can be used in Iraq! Instead of shooting Iraqis driving their cars near checkpoints, our military can stop them with the heat ray gun. Yeah, yeah that’s it. That’s what it’s good for - stopping people with evil intentions. It will save lives. It’s good. Good. It’s all good. Let us praise military technology, Amen. The clip ends.

Let’s think through some other uses, shall we? The heat ray gun leaves no marks whatsoever on the body, but it causes tremendous pain. The second you step out of the way the pain stops. All the victim has to do is step out of the way and the pain stops.

OK. Well, what if you couldn’t step out of the way? What if you were handcuffed to a wall and some sadistic military psychopath decided to torture you with the heat ray gun? Hmmm? Has anyone thought of that?

OK. Here’s another scenario. Let’s say there’s another terrorist attack on America and the military is called in to keep order. Let’s say the government institutes martial law. Let’s say people protest. Will they use the heat ray guns on Americans? What if a group of people is surrounded by heat ray guns and can’t get out of the way? Hmmm?

Will they be allowed to use it on children? The elderly? Does anybody know? Who enforces the rules? Can we expect the same gleeful use that we see with police officers using tasers? If the heat ray gun leaves no mark, does it come down to the victim’s word against the soldier? Who do you suppose will win that contest?

It’s so typical of our corporate press to not ask questions like this. That would be impolite because it would cast aspersions on our government and on our military, and we don’t do that no matter what they do. But we should. If you think for one second that the US government would hesitate using a weapon like this which tortures without leaving a mark on American civilians, you have not been paying attention. They hit the pay-dirt with your tax dollars. This was likely a black ops technology development. You paid for it, and you will have no recourse when they use it against….You.

1 comment:

malcontent said...

It will make a great crowd control for our new "Free Speech Zones" as well. Especially when they are designed like this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19457-2004Jul27.html

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