Pain Ray, no fun but fun to say

You know the Pentagon has been mining old sci-fi flicks when the good old ray gun shows up as the latest Iraq-intended weapon of the day. (full disclosure: the cartoon image is not the real Raytheon product). We understand that these non-lethal weapons are supposed to be the nice version to putting a bullet in you're opponent, but do they all have to be so disturbing? Raytheon's Pain Ray shoots an invisible beam of energy that burns the skin, they say like touching a light-bulb all over your body. That might sound all warm and fuzzy, but it's probably more like falling on a searing hot grill. We're thinking that the Pain Ray probably won't turn Fallujah into an American-loving Wal-Mart haven, but could really piss off a lot more peeps who don't appreciate the kitsch factor of the ray gun.

[Maikeru @ Dec 19th 2005 1:57AM]

...(and this something I heard about the product around 2 years ago) that while it's supposed to be a painray, the effects are more like getting a vicious sunburn (a painful scorching sensation with a sunburn after-effect). The developers address the issue of such a "non-letal" device being potentially harmful to the eyes,they state that those subjected to it would most likely either look away from it or shut their eyes�of course the answer seems all too simple.

[Asher @ Dec 19th 2005 1:57AM]

The new Army ads will need to have Paris Hilton hawkin these guns as the new kinder gentler Army, with great tans. But the Flash Gordon uniforms may not go over very well... hmmm.

[panicboy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:57AM]

In other words, the next city to host the RNC can have another crowd-control weapon at their disposal. Nice.

This is how NYC prepped:

http://tinyurl.com/54p4z