Clean And Efficient Pain Machines
by digby
I had heard these were coming, but I didn’t realize they were already on the market:
The 7½-foot-tall Assault Intervention Device emits a focused, invisible ray that causes an unbearable heating sensation in its targets – hopefully stopping inmates from fighting or doing anything other than trying to get out of its way, sheriff’s officials said. The device, unveiled Friday at Pitchess Detention Center, will be mounted near the ceiling in a dormitory housing about 65 prisoners, according to Commander Bob Osborne of the Sheriff’s Department Technology Exploration Program. “We hope that this type of technology will either cause an inmate to stop an assault or lessen the severity of an assault by them being distracted by the pain as a result of the beam,” Osborne said. “So that we have fewer injuries, fewer assaults, those kinds of things.” Deputies have tested the device on themselves and say the beam is painful – especially when it’s not expected. “I equate it to opening an oven door and feeling that blast of hot air, except instead of being all over me, it’s more focused,” Osborne said. “And you begin to feel this warming feeling, and then you go ‘Yow, I need to get out of the way.”‘ The pain can be stopped by moving out of the beam’s path, which targets do instinctively. Deputies say it should reduce injuries by speeding up the time it takes to break up a fight. Normally if a fight breaks out, deputies can’t move in immediately, but have to take the time to assemble a team while the fight continues.
They love the idea of being able to cause pain without “injury,” whatever that means.
“This device will allow us to quickly intervene without having to enter the area and without incapacitating or injuring either combatant,” said Sheriff Lee Baca in a statement
Ok, so these guys have been convicted of a crime and are in custody. Their freedoms (although not their human rights) have been taken away for cause and they are unquestioningly subject to the states’ orders. But imagine a society in which the police (for our own good) use methods like this to break up political protests. And then further imagine that same society some time later in which its people have been trained like Pavlov’s dogs to comply with authorities’ orders. Authorities, by the way, which are sheltered from danger by being able to control its subjects from a distance:
The device is controlled by a joystick and computer monitor and emits a beam about the size of a CD up to distances of about 80 to 100 feet. The wave travels at the speed of light and penetrates the skin up to 1/64 of an inch.
“If you got in the way, you’ll know,” said Mike Booen, vice president of advance security at Raytheon, which has been working on the device for about 20 years. “You feel the effect in less than a second. No one can stand there for more than about three seconds because it really hurts.”
[…]
The technology was originally designed as a less-lethal weapon for military applications. Larger versions, including one which can heat up a person’s entire torso, were mounted on a back of Hummer to use for crowd control purposes.
“When you get that many of your pain receptacles telling you brain ‘This needs to stop,’ you can’t think of anything else,” Booen said. “And that tends to be very effective.”
I wonder what happens if people subject to these heat rays can’t get away? For instance, if they are in a confined area. Like a prison. Or a crowd.
I guess they’ll think twice before they do anything again that might precipitate such pain. After all, “when you get that many of your pain receptacles telling your brain ‘this needs to stop'” and you can’t stop it, I’d assume there might be some psychological after effects.
But hey, it’s all good:
“With this device, we can affect people that we need to have experience that effect and not have anything happen to other people,” Osborne said. “And there’s nothing to clean up, and no injuries.”
Well that’s a relief.
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