Free Republic

The gun uses a large dish mounted on a Humvee vehicle The US military has given the first public display of what it says is a revolutionary heat-ray weapon to repel enemies or disperse hostile crowds. The gun - called Silent Guardian - projects an invisible high energy beam that produces a sudden burning feeling, but is actually harmless. The beam can be fired as far as 500m (550 yards), much further than existing non-lethal weapons like rubber bullets. The gun should be in use by the US military within three years. The prototype weapon uses a large rectangular...

A 19-year-old man was arrested after authorities said he shined a laser pointer at a police helicopter. The bright green laser beamed into the cockpit late Monday night, temporarily blinding the officers, said Melissa Klein, an NYPD spokeswoman. Police arrested Anthony Pepe a short time later, and charged him with reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon, Klein said.

Livermore lab laser hits new record Most powerful glass device moves closer to battlefield By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER In less than an hour, technicians Balbir Bhachu and Kurt Cutter clamped thick slabs of exotic glass into a device they're building for the U.S. Army and blew away the world's record for power on a solid-state laser. The invisible beam on Monday measured 29.7 kilowatts, instantly topping a U.S. military goal of 25 kilowatts that defense giants Raytheon and Northrop Grumman are racing to achieve by the end of 2004. That's still a fraction of the power that military experts...