A tazer hurts as much as a lash from a whip, but without the external scarring. This is why they use tazers when they wouldn't use a bull whip, even though we all think whipping is inhumane now, somehow we don't treat tazing the same way because it doesn't leave skin marks that forces to confront the reality of the situation.

Here we get a mass whipping device, a few people without judicial process or control can mass 'whip' a population by zapping them with a pain ray. But it's OK, because the pain doesn't leave scarring, so the evidence is not visible. The populace can go about their day in self denial because the people who suffer the pain don't show marks on their bodies.

And as long as punishments as so easily metered out without process, we will end up throwing out our legal tradition.

Instead of (guilt_probability>90%)?Hurt : NotHurt

We'll end up Blair'ing ourselves:

Punishment = guilt_probability*Punish

Instead of punishing people we are reasonably sure are guilty, we inflict lower punishments depending on how confident we are that they're guilty. We'll end up dishing out a little pain punishment just *in* *case* they're a little guilty.

"Those two look shifty, lets zap them with the ray."

In the Blair tradition of making ever smaller crimes with ever lower levels of proof, to catch people who 'might' be guilty, and applying smaller punishments to them. Have 10 suspects for a crime? Why not punish them all a little instead of finding the guilty one.

Who knows, some idiot may attach them to surveillance cameras, and dish out mini punishments in cases of littering, loitering, looking at the camera a funny way, just like they dish out verbal rebukes now with speakers on cameras.

"Hey mister, you dropped that paper, ZAP".

Problem is, what happens when you only *think* he dropped the paper and you are wrong and he is right? What elevated you about him? Why don't you get zapped for zapping someone without cause?

/idle thoughts

Seriously, could you foam at the mouth just a little more, please? I didn't get quite enough spittle on my shirt...

George, I love ya, and I love your work, and we've even corresponded a bit in the past, but this time, you're too far over the top. Most of the time, you're dead-on, but every now and again you seem to lose it, like your assinine critique of the current US helmet design a few years back.

Sit back, relax, maybe drink some decaf. Yeah, FutureWeapons is a crock o' shite, and no doubt about it, but really, is it so important an issue that you have to give yourself a stroke over it?

Oh, and leave Shotgun News alone - It's a respectable rag. Guns & Ammo, and it's illegitimate children, though, deserve all the kicking you can give 'em.

Non-lethal weapons, such as The Active Denial System (ADS), were originally intended as, and are still promoted as, an alternative to lethal weapons. That's why they're called Non-Lethal Weapons.

Time for a Reality Check: That's not what actually happens in the real world, is it?

For example, if a loud-mouth student in Florida simply Will Not Shut Up, then the nano-brained campus plods, presumably at the very moment when they're seriously considering simply shooting the kid in the chest several times with their 9mm, realize that perhaps they can use the non-lethal Taser alternative.

Is that what happened? Were they seriously considering lethal weapons because he simply Will Not Shut Up?

Or was the Taser used to meet out the painful punishment then and there?

So in Iraq, a crowd of angry women will menace the Marines with angry chants in a threatening manner while holding a smoldering Stars-and-Stripes. The Marines, presumably at the moment when they're seriously considering simply mowing them all down with a machine gun, will instead use the ADS? Is that the thinking? Are these the only alternatives: brutal death or painfully zapped?

Is ADS really going to be used as a "non-lethal alternative", or more likely as a lazy soldiers 'stay back, and by-the-way, don't burn our flag' message / punishment?

Let's be honest and rename many non-lethal weapons as what they really are:

"Tactical Torture Devices"

Don't you think you went a bit far on this one El Reg? And George Smith, other than having an obvious bias towards FAS, everything I've seen over on Global Security is pretty neutral and respectable. You've damaged your credability with this rant-based opinion peice.

Future Weapons has an obnoxious host, and an obvious slant towards weapons manufacturers, but for the most part they really are just studying weapons. If you have a problem with the American Military, question its politics and tactics, not its weaponry.

And Shotgun News? That's just auto-trader for guns. For shame...

I must be sick, I feel guilty now...

I presume Waddell Media aren't related to Martin Waddell, the children's author? I imagine he'd be most upset about being associated with this kind of death-porn...

Well, I have to admit that I've watched the show a number of times, and mostly because I am a military buff more than a rabid carnage viewer. It used to be Discovery Wings Channel but apparently there was too little aviation content to keep it going. The thing that George is missing is that the slant of the show is to provide information on developing systems for use by the military to help better protect the soldiers and people they are sworn to protect. I did love the segment on the mine clearing tool that I think was developed over in UK. An armored tractor with spinning chains on a drum, very medevil in design, but very effect on a strategic problem that unfortunately gets left over after the fighting stops.

I know the humanitarian choice is to not go to war, but we are still primative and violent in our nature and it will happen again and again. Increasing the suvivability of an army greatly increases it's chance of victory and perhaps even reduces the length of the conflict. I'll still watch the show when nothing else better is on the 200+ channels but unlike SoF, GnA, and the rest of the paramilitary rags, I'm not going shell out extra money for it.

You can make anything sound bad.

Why the rant on FutureWeapons? Why now? (It's been showing on US cable networks for quite a long time.) In the same vein, we also have programs devoted to knitting, cooking, 'albuming' (No, it's not what that sounds like to a chemist.), anything-goes fighting, surgery, sex, women yakking, men yakking, war, huge erections (no, not that kind) and poultry-raising-for-fun-and-profit.

Oh, and we have any amount of programs devoted to the use of current weapons - they're called CNN and Fox News. So why the rant about this particular program and why now?

The same thing applies to your bits about magazines. Soldier of Fortune, Guns 'n Ammo, Big Stick With A Nail In Weekly - why these ones and why now?

I'm personally in favor of all of the above as it keeps a certain personality type out of the pub while I'm there.

I used to buy 'Military Technology' magazine from the newsagency. I dont really think I was their target demographic, the ads in there were for destroyers, and artillery systems etc.. kind of outside the reach of generic suburbia..

This TV show sounds like a continuation of the magazine, although from the comments, dumbed down in presentation. This reinforces my opinion that TV simply isnt worth watching.

As an aside, why is this article in Science, and not Entertainment - or even Hardware ?